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COPYRIGHT DEPOSrr. 




William A. Stone 



Photograph, 1910 



THE TALE OF 
A PLAIN MAN 



BY 



WILLIAM A. STONE 




9ttonh lE&ttfmt 



PHILADELPHIA 
THE JOHN C. WINSTON COMPANY 

1918 



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Copyright, 1918, by 
William A. Stonb 



©c501707 






PREFACE 

In the writing and publication of the first edition 
of these memoirs, at the request of my children and 
grandchildren, I was not influenced by the thought 
that they would be read except from a sense of 
filial duty. There has been such an unexpected 
demand for them that after the first edition of five 
hundred copies was exhausted I have turned a 
copy of the memoirs, after revision and some 
additions, over to The John C. Winston Company, 
of 1010 Arch Street, Philadelphia, Pa., who will 
publish a second edition so that all who desire a 
copy may obtain one through the publishers. 

William A. Stone. 

June 1st, 1918. 



(8) 



CONTENTS 

CHAPTER PAGB 

I. Childhood 9 

II. My Sister's Marriage 14 

III. Stone Soup 18 

IV. The Pikeby Bottle and Early Reme- 

dies AND Doctors 20 

V. Matthew Blackwell and Playing 

Indian 25 

VI. Our Home Life 33 

VII. Superstition 38 

VIII. Mass Meetings 40 

IX. The Underground Railroad 42 

X. Graveyard Ghosts 44 

XI. Midnight 47 

XII. Boyhood 49 

Xni. Spiritualism 58 

XIV. Camp Meeting 60 

XV. Baptism by Immersion 67 

XVI. Called Preachers 70 

XVII. Father McGovern 78 

XVIII. Johnny Smoker 81 

XIX. Local Politics 86 

XX. The Civil War 89 

XXI. Girls 91 

XXII. I Become a Soldier 107 

XXIII. On Picket 117 

XXIV. In Camp 131 

(6) 



CONTENTS 



CHAPTER PAGE 

XXV. Ordered to Philadelphia 134 

XXVI. Home on Furlough 138 

XXVII. Back in Camp 140 

XXVIII. Lincoln's Assassination 147 

XXIX. Home Again 149 

XXX. Wellsboro 167 

XXXI. Admitted to the Bar and Married . . 188 

XXXII. Wilson's Campaign for Judge 203 

XXXIII. Ku Klux Outrages 208 

XXXIV. District Attorney 212 

XXXV. United States Attorney 227 

XXXVI. Beaver's Campaign against Stewart 233 
XXXVII. Life vs. Death — A Lawyer's Brief 

FOR THE Plaintiff 237 

XXXVIII. Candidate for Congress 257 

XXXIX. Governor of Pennsylvanl\ 280 

XL. Return to Practice 303 

XLI. Remarks of William A. Stone at the 
Presentation of the Portrait of 
Justice John P. Elkin, Deceased, 
TO the Supreme Court, March 20, 
1916 308 



ILLUSTRATIONS 

William A. Stone Frontispiece ► 

PAGE 

Amanda Howe Stone 18 

Birthplace and Boyhood Home 36 *" 

Israel Stone 86 

The Author's Old Home as it Appears Today. . 150 



(7) 



CHAPTER I 

Childhood 

I HAVE no recollection of being born, but 
from what has been told me, and other 
evidence, I am convinced that I was born 
on the 18th day of April, 1846, in Delmar 
Township, Tioga County, Pennsylvania. My 
father was a widower when he married my 
mother, by which circumstance I had a half- 
sister and three half-brothers. He was a small 
farmer on a fifty-acre farm and his best crop was 
children — not in quality perhaps, but quantity, 
at least the neighbors thought there were enough 
of us. We were not bad children, but somewhat 
shiftless, and indifferent to the opinion of the 
neighbors. My earliest recollection was being 
hustled out of bed early in the morning by my 
half-brothers to see Santa Claus as he galloped 
over the brow of the hill in his sleigh behind his 
reindeers in a scud of blinding, flying snow. I 
thought I could see him and hear the bells on 
the reindeers. The others said they could see 
him and hear the bells jingling. They pointed 

(9) 



10 THE TALE OF A PLAIN MAN 

him out to me and I saw or was persuaded to 
see him. Afterwards I had some doubt whether 
I did see him. We often see things through the 
influence and insistence of others that we cannot 
see when they are not with us. Santa did not 
bring me much that Christmas morning — two 
round bull's-eye candies and some doughnuts in 
the shape of elephants and horses. But that 
was as much as the others got, and it was enough. 
We were as happy and proud of Santa's gifts 
as any children could be, and had no doubt of 
the existence of Santa Claus. The doughnuts 
looked somewhat like a horse, and we had never 
seen an elephant. The next thing that I recall 
is a slight punishment for Sabbath breaking. 
My father and mother were very pious God- 
fearing people and worshiped at the school- 
house meetings, regardless of the denomination 
of the preacher. My birthday came on Sunday 
and it was thought by the other boys that some- 
thing should be done to celebrate it, so I was 
provided with pole, line, hook and bait, and 
caught a fine trout out of the brook running 
through the farm. When I took it home in 
great glee to show what I had done I was brought 
face to face, for the first time, with the enormity 



CHILDHOOD 11 

of Sabbath desecration. It was a very serious 
matter, and my father and mother held con- 
sultation over it. Finally, I was sentenced to 
remain in the house all the balance of the day. 
It made a great impression on me, which I have 
never outgrown. I am a fisherman. I love the 
sport and have fished all of my life, more or less, 
but I have never fished on Sunday since my birth- 
day fishing and its punishment. I have done a 
great many worse things than to fish on Sunday, 
I have no doubt, but I have not done them on 
Sunday. I could never bring myself to play 
cards nor any other game on Sunday. While 
I am not prepared to say that it is wrong when 
not done in public, yet my father and mother 
believed it to be wrong, and they were honest, 
God-fearing people who not only had my love 
and veneration, but my respect. Things began 
to happen then that I recall very vividly. I 
shall not relate them all, but only those that 
impressed me most profoundly. Some two 
hundred feet from the house was a well of water 
without any curb or cover over it. My mother, 
a gentle, quiet, sympathetic soul, with more 
tears than temper, long-suffering and kind, had 
a hard time with those overgrown, unruly half- 



12 THE TALE OF A PLAIN MAN 

brothers of mine. There were three of them, 
with about two years' difference in their ages, the 
youngest about seven. They were not afraid 
of my mother, and only feared she would tell my 
father. He was more stern, and his most usual 
effective argument was a stick or gad. My 
mother was always afraid that I would fall in 
this uncovered well, and she would run up to it 
and look down, if I was out of sight and did not 
answer her call. It was corn -hoeing time, and 
warm. My father was in the field. The four 
of us went to the well and they put my straw 
hat down on the top of the water, and we all hid 
in a big tansy bed near the house. Soon my 
mother came out of the house and called us. 
No answer. I wanted to answer, but there were 
objections — I had learned that punishment for 
disobedience to the boys was more swift and 
certain than to mother. Then she ran up to the 
well, and seeing my straw hat floating on the top 
of the water, had no doubt but that I had fallen 
in and was drowned. She ran rapidly to the 
house. There was great merriment in the tansy 
bed, but soon she reappeared with the dinner 
horn and gave several sharp loud blasts. It 
was only ten o'clock, but the horn brought my 



CHILDHOOD 13 

father hurrying to the house. We saw him 
coming on the run. My mother met him — the 
merriment had ceased in the tansy bed. He 
heard her rapid explanation. He threw up his 
head and gave one loud short call of "boys.'* 
Instantly four heads like snakes rose up out of 
the tansy bed. He looked at us a moment. 
The heads were hanging low. Nothing was said. 
There was an old hickory stump near, out of 
which had grown up some straight hickory 
sprouts or shoots. He took his jack-knife out 
of his pocket and cut and trimmed a hickory 
sprout about three feet long. He was dehberate 
about it. There was no more merriment nor 
suppressed laughter in the tansy bed; but, soon, 
there was wailing and grief, and many tears. 
A hickory sprout wielded by a strong man makes 
an impression on a boy, especially in the summer, 
when his clothes are few and thin. For some 
time after that there were no more tricks played 
on my mother. 



CHAPTER II 

My Sister's Marriage 

MY father came from Massachusetts in 
1831 with his first wife and one 
daughter. They drove and walked all 
the way with one horse and a light wagon, 
bringing various household goods. They settled 
on an abandoned fifty acres of ground with a log 
house and some five acres cleared, and lived there 
all of their lives. Three sons and one daughter 
were born there of the first marriage. One of the 
daughters died in infancy. My younger brother 
and I were the only children of the second mar- 
riage. I well remember when my half-sister was 
married. There were very few neighbors. Most 
of the land was covered with hemlock, pine, 
beech, hickory, chestnut, oak, maple, ironwood 
and other hard wood timber. Bear, wolves, deer 
and panthers were occasionally seen. We lived 
about five miles from the nearest village. 

The wedding was like other weddings in that 
vicinity. The bridegroom was a strong, husky 
young man. His belongings consisted of what 

(14) 



MY SISTER'S MARRIAGE 15 

clothes he had and a double-bitted axe which he 
could swing with great effect. But my sister 
was given what was called a setting-out — a cow, 
bed and bedding, cook stove, some dishes and 
cooking utensils, a few chairs, etc. This was 
the custom. The wedding was simple. An 
itinerant preacher, who held forth on Sundays 
in schoolhouses, performed the marriage cere- 
mony. There was no bridal veil, orange 
blossoms, bridal tour, nor wedding presents. 
My sister wore her best dress which she had made 
herself. I did not notice any change in the 
apparel of the bridegroom, except that he had 
on a clean new flannel shirt and a new bandanna 
neckerchief. They stood up in the spare room, 
and the preacher performed the service. He 
did not kiss the bride, nor did any one else — 
kissing was not so customary then. I never saw 
my father kiss my mother, hold her hand, nor 
show her any endearing attention, although 
they loved each other devotedly. I loved my 
mother, and she loved me with a love that did 
not die with her, and still lives with me, but she 
never kissed me. The first time I was ever 
kissed was by a neighbor girl while we were 
gathering apples. I did not know what it 



16 THE TALE OF A PLAIN MAN 

meant, but I did know that it was good, and I 
wanted more of it. The preacher was satisfied 
with his dinner and fifty cents paid him by the 
bridegroom. Then the bride and groom, she 
with a httle bundle and he with his axe on his 
shoulder, started on foot to their new home, 
about five miles back in the woods, where he 
had taken up an abandoned claim or tract of 
sixty acres with a few acres chopped over and a 
one-roomed log house. My sister's belongings 
had been taken out there in the morning. That 
night the customary horning was given by the 
friends of the groom. No wedding was regarded 
as properly constituted without it. The more 
popular the bridegroom, the larger was the 
attendance at the horning. It commenced just 
after dark and consisted of every kind of noise 
and racket that could be contrived. Old horns, 
bells, tin cans, shooting of guns, cheers, yells, 
and if rosin and a drygoods box could be 
obtained, the horse fiddle was heard, and when 
that was working nothing else was heard. 
Powdered rosin on a drygoods box, over which 
is pressed and drawn a fence rail, produced a 
noise more diabolical, infernal and nerve-racking 
than any other then known, and was regarded 



MY SISTER'S MARRIAGE 17 

as the star actor in a successful horning. It was 
expected and welcomed by the wedded pair as a 
proper tribute to them. I have known the bride 
to complain the next morning because the horse 
fiddle was omitted at the horning. This was 
kept up until midnight, when cider was passed 
out the door in pails with tincups, after partaking 
of which the horners, calling good night, went 
away. Next day came the infare at the home 
of the parents of the bridegroom. This was 
simply a gathering of the relatives of the bride 
and groom, where a dinner was served and the 
horning discussed, and the bride and groom were 
looked over and inventoried and good wishes 
expressed, after which they were expected to 
jog along in their proper place in the community 
without any further nonsense. I don't know 
how old I was at this time. I may have been 
six or seven years, but I remember it well. No 
great preparations were made for the wedding. 
I saw my father return from the village with a 
wooden bucket holding twelve or fourteen 
quarts of brown sugar. This was all that was 
purchased for the occasion. My mother was a 
splendid cook, and it was wonderful to see what 
she could do with flour, butter and brown sugar. 



CHAPTER III 

Stone Soup 

MY mother was a good cook. The 
preachers always stopped with us, and 
nothing pleased my mother better than 
to cook for and feed them. Her stone soup was 
famous. She had a round, smooth stone, about 
as large as a baseball. She would place this in 
a kettle with water, and boil it, adding flour, 
salt, suet, pepper, onions or garlic, from time 
to time, a few small pieces of fresh meat, sage 
leaves and other seasoning. After several hours 
she would take the kettle off the fire and we had 
a fine stone soup. No one doubted the con- 
tribution which the stone made to the soup and 
it was frequently borrowed by the neighbors. 
It was the only soup stone in the neighborhood. 
It was thought that there was some peculiar 
composition in the stone which added to the 
flavor of the soup. My mother was very proud 
of it. One neighbor declared that she had tried 
to make soup without the stone, using every 
other ingredient, but the soup was not nearly 

(18) 




Amanda Howe Stone 



Mother of William A. Stone 



STONE SOUP 19 

so good. My father used to laugh at the women. 
He admitted that the stone in the kettle made 
better soup, but not because it added anything 
to the soup, but because the boiling water kept 
the stone moving and constantly stirring the 
soup; that any other stone would produce the 
same result. My mother denied this. She 
would not admit that any other round, smooth 
stone would make just as good soup as hers — 
and there I learned that it is human nature to 
think that what we own is a little bit better than 
things owned by others. I like this. I like to 
hear men and women claim that their children, 
their horses and everything they possess, is 
superior to others. It is much more agreeable 
than to hear them declare that what they have 
is worse than others. I have never just settled 
in my own mind whether my father or my mother 
was right in their theory of the stone soup. 



CHAPTER IV 

The Pikery Bottle and Early Remedies 
AND Doctors 

WE lived simply and cheaply, but well. 
Everything was cheap; whiskey was 
only three cents a glass, and it always 
stood on the sideboard with the pikery bottle. 
The preachers helped themselves to the whiskey, 
but rarely touched the pikery bottle. A person 
had to be pretty sick to tackle that. It was a 
dark liquid, made of aloes and a little of every- 
thing that had a bad taste. It was mixed on 
the theory that the hair of the dog cures the 
bite, and if you had a pain and took a dose of it, 
you soon had a worse pain in front which dis- 
counted all others. I remember it well. It 
was a tall bottle with a wooden stopper in it 
and a string, one end of which was tied around 
the top of the stopper and the other around the 
neck of the bottle. My father and mother and 
the neighbors had great faith in it, but all the 
children hated it. I have often concealed and 
denied illness rather than face the pikery bottle. 

(20) 



THE PIKERY BOTTLE 21 

Doctors were few and far away, and housewife 
remedies were used with usual good results. 
My mother was a good nurse and doctor. She 
gathered each summer boneset leaves, sage 
leaves, rhubarb roots, lobelia, tansy, blue ver- 
vine and many other herbs which she knew when 
to give. In extreme cases the famous "hemlock 
sweat" was administered. There was a large 
kettle of boiling water into which hemlock leaves 
were placed and the patient sat over it with 
blankets drawn about in such a way that the 
steam and evaporations from the boiling leaves 
could not escape. A violent sweat resulted and 
was generally sufficient to break up a bad cold 
and put one in a normal condition. If the 
pikery, hemlock sweat and other remedies 
failed, then a doctor must be fetched from the 
village. The roads were bad in spring and 
winter and the doctors covered a wide territory, 
and they were not much more successful in their 
practice than our mothers. Any one could set 
up as a doctor without college or office training, 
and many did so. There were two schools, 
allopathy and homeopathy, and opinion ran 
high among the people as to which was the best. 
Disputes grew furious, and sometimes people 



22 THE TALE OF A PLAIN MAN 

who knew nothing at all about the theory or 
merits of either school, came to blows. These 
disputes were frequently fostered and fed by 
the doctors themselves. But the doctors that 
kept their mouths shut and did not talk much, 
generally were regarded as the best. One 
homeopathic doctor who never talked much 
obtained a large practice. He would shake his 
head or nod over his patients and never say 
whether death or recovery would result, but he 
possessed a rare natural sympathy and always 
attended the funeral of his patients. This took 
much of his time, but he was always on hand, 
and the people thought highly of him. He 
knew the merits of aconite and belladona, and 
this was really all the medicine that he ever 
gave, and all that he knew anything about. 
He was supposed to be a very learned man. 
He was an agreeable conversationalist because 
he always listened, with looks and nods of 
approval, and never said much. One day he 
made a fatal mistake. 

He had a call ten miles away and wrote on a 
slate and hung it on his oflSce door: "Gon too 
Pin Crick, bak too nite. " One of his allopathic 
competitors saw it and spread the news, and 



THE PIKERY BOTTLE 23 

before the doctor got back half the town had 
read it. That ruined his practice. The people 
could not forgive poor spelling. Those were 
days of spelHng schools or spelling matches, 
when there were famous spellers in the land, 
and men and women would stand up in rows 
and spell each other down, and like Jeems 
PhiUips in the "Hoosier Schoolmaster," there 
were men and women who, without much educa- 
tion, could spell correctly nearly every word pro- 
nounced to them. Inquiry into Doctor John- 
son's former history in the distant village from 
where he came showed that he had been a 
blacksmith, and, getting tired of it, he had 
moved into our village, where he was not known, 
and set up as a doctor. He had only three 
things, silence, sympathy and some knowledge 
of aconite and belladona, which were great 
assistants. While there were good herb remedies 
given that were generally suflScient for ordinary 
colds and troubles, there was much faith in 
foolish and ridiculous remedies. It was gen- 
erally believed that the entrails of a black 
tomcat bound around the inflamed part was 
the best and quickest cure for erysipelas. 
Pasture ball tea was beheved to bring the measles 



24 THE TALE OF A PLAIN MAN 

out to the surface. Bleeding was in general 
practice, and the turnkey forceps were used to 
pull teeth. The neighborhood blacksmith bled 
people and pulled their teeth at a shilHng an 
operation. People were bled for being too stout, 
and others for being too thin, and some were 
bled regularly each month to prevent sickness. 
There was no appendicitis, but there were many 
fatal cases of bowel complaint. Since the 
discovery of appendicitis I have not heard of 
bowel complaint. 

My mother had an eyestone for removing 
dirt from the eye which was in frequent demand 
in the neighborhood. It was a smooth white 
stone about the shape and size of a half pea. 
Dip it in vinegar and slip it into the eye. It 
was supposed to find the dirt and attach itself 
to it, and then slip out, bringing the dirt with 
it. We all had great faith in it. It would 
always remove the dirt unless it had become 
fast in the eye. It passed from neighbor to 
neighbor, and generally was in somebody's eye. 



CHAPTER V 

Matthew Blackwell and Playing Indian 

WE had a long-barreled, smooth-bore 
rifle. It would shoot shot or bullets, 
and we boys kept it busy. It was a 
notorious kicker. It was a mooted question as 
to which end of it was most dangerous. There 
were squirrels and pheasants and, in the summer 
and fall, many pigeons. I have seen a buck- 
wheat field at harvest practically covered with 
them. The snow was deeper and more of it in 
the winter and there was colder weather than 
now. The pigeons are gone, and the deep snows 
and cold winters. I don't know why it is, but 
I know that it is so. There were brook trout 
in all the streams, where now there are none. 
A family moved into a vacant house which stood 
in a hollow or ravine a short distance from our 
house. Their name was Blackwell. The man 
was tall and dignified in appearance, and very 
courtly. He had a wife and several children. 
They were poor, but proud and honest. Black- 
well was sane from April to November, but in 

(25) 



26 THE TALE OF A PLAIN MAN 

the winter months he was afflicted with a mild 
sort of delusion, and imagined all sorts of queer 
things. In his normal hours conversation with 
my father around the old fireplace showed a 
knowledge of books and men, but when the cold 
weather came on he would do strange things. 
He had great belief in a liniment that he called 
apedildock. He carried a bottle of it with him 
and insisted on applying it to every neighbor's 
ailment. He always wore a Prince Albert coat 
and a stovepipe hat, well brushed, though much 
worn, and talked every one into silence. Some 
one gave him an old blind horse which had 
outlived its usefulness, and which its owner was 
too stingy to winter and too cowardly to shoot. 
He bought for a trifle an old cutter or sleigh, 
and with bits of leather and clothesline rigged 
up a harness, and started down the creek road 
in December, to cure the world of its ills with 
his apedildock. Wliile passing along the side 
hill some forty feet above the creek the clothes 
line rein broke, and pulling suddenly on the line 
towards the creek, the old bHnd horse went over 
the side, and horse, cutter and Blackwell, went 
end over end, down the hill to the bottom of the 
ravine. The cutter was smashed, the horse's 



PLAYING INDIAN 27 

neck broken, but Blackwell and his bottle of 
apedildock escaped unharmed. He built a fire 
on the bank of the creek and proposed to bring 
the dead horse to life by the administration of 
apedildock. He named the day and hour when 
the miracle was to be performed, and the people 
living near came to see it. The stream was 
frozen and the horse also, but the old man went 
through his rites rubbing the frozen horse with 
the liniment and murmuring strange words. 
But the miracle was not performed, and Black- 
well, with much reluctance, was led away by 
the kind-hearted people and cared for. In the 
spring, when the snow was gone and the wild 
flowers came and the bob -whites and whippoor- 
wills were singing in the fields, it was hard to 
stay in the house nights, and the mischievous 
boys would gather at the corners just above old 
man Blackwell's house. It amused them to 
throw a few stones down onto the roof of his 
house. He would come out and in loud tones 
rebuke them and swear. One night my older 
half-brothers stole quietly away and I followed 
them. They discovered me and sent me home 
with a pair of long-legged boots which one of 
them removed, thinking they would be cum- 



28 THE TALE OF A PLAIN MAN 

bersome for fast running. But I slipped 
along after them quietly. They met some 
neighbor boys at the corners and going down the 
hill road began to throw stones down on the 
roof of Blackwell's house. They expected him 
to come out and rant and swear as usual. But 
they had delayed too long. The spring was too 
far advanced. Blackwell had become normal; 
on that night, at least, he had a lucid interval. 
Instead of storming and swearing he took a 
stick and quietly slipped along the fence, unseen 
by them, and before they knew it he was among 
them. They ran up the hill and I, not knowing 
the cause, started out of the fence corner where 
I was hid, and took after them. I was the only 
one that Blackwell caught. I had not thrown 
a stone, but that made no difference. I was 
caught running. The stick fortunately was not 
a heavy one. It was a thin piece of dry wood, 
and it soon broke in pieces, and then he took 
me by the arm and escorted me home. My 
father responded to his knock, and opened the 
door. Our boys had gone up a ladder, and got 
in at the chamber window, and tossed the ladder 
down into a bed of pie plant and were in bed 
and apparently asleep, as evidenced by loud 



PLAYING INDIAN 29 

snores upstairs. Blackwell told his story. 
When my father asked me if our boys were there, 
I knew better than to admit it, and stoutly 
denied it, telling him they were Tyler's boys, 
neighbor boys, quite as bad as ours. As Black- 
well did not know who they were, my tale 
might have been believed, but my father 
recognized the boots which I had been sent 
back with, and which I still carried, one in each 
hand. They were all snoring loudly upstairs. 
He said nothing, but took down from a shelf, 
where it was kept when not in use, a well- 
seasoned hickory gad and hurried upstairs. 
The boys were wakened. The snoring ceased, 
and Blackwell went home satisfied, after listen- 
ing to the responses of forcible discipline for a 
few minutes. As I had had mine from Black- 
well, I was told to go to bed. His house was not 
stoned after that. 

After Matthew Blackwell moved away a 
family moved in by the name of Johnson. He 
was called Honey Johnson, because he once 
stole a beehive, honey, bees and all, and was 
caught with it. He was not prosecuted for it, 
but was called Honey Johnson until people 
really thought that was his name. They called 



30 THE TALE OF A PLAIN MAN 

him Honey to his face without knowing what 
it meant to him. His wife would call him 
Honey, but from my observances of them, I do 
not think she called him Honey before he stole 
the bees. If he had been a man of sensitive 
nature that would have been a worse punish- 
ment than imprisonment, but he was not a man 
of sensitive nature. Far from it. He was a 
coarse, ignorant man, and his family were 
coarse and very ignorant. He worked when he 
could get work from the farmers, and work was 
hard for him to get, as nearly all of the farmers 
kept bees. He had three boys, ranging from 
seven to twelve years; none of the family could 
read. Our boys loved the dime novel stories 
of the Wild West, and especially tales of Indians. 
They were familiar with many tales of burning 
at the stake, war whoops and scalpings. It 
was in the fall when elderberries were ripe, 
Johnson's boys and our boys were out in the 
woods where a windfall had made a clearing 
and elderbushes grew. We were sitting on the 
edge of this clearing. My oldest brother pulled 
a novel out of his pocket and began to read a 
harrowing tale about the Indians burning at 
the stake three boys, taken in a settlement raid. 



PLAYING INDIAN 31 

The Johnson boys were excited and somewhat 
wrought up. Quietly, one by one, my brothers 
sHpped away. In about fifteen minutes there 
were loud yells and war-whoops, and my 
brothers dashed out of the woods upon us. 
The Johnson boys started to run, but were soon 
overtaken and brought back. 

No wonder they ran. Our boys had stained 
their feet, legs, hands, faces and necks with 
elderberry juice and stuck feathers, dropped by 
flying birds, in their caps. They were Indians. 
They tied their victims to small trees with 
strips of leatherwood bark and began to gather 
limbs and sticks in front of them for a fire. The 
prisoners believed that their captors were 
Indians. They had seized and tied me up to a 
tree, and I was quietly told to cry and take on, 
which I did, and four boys wailed and shrieked 
out their grief. Soon the fires were kindled 
amid the shrieks and groans of the victims, our 
boys dancing around howling and whooping 
their loudest. It was great fun for them. They 
had not thought of a rescue. They did not 
suppose that Deerslayer or any of Cooper's 
heroes were around, but there were rescuers. 
There had been too much yelling, which, with 



32 THE TALE OF A PLAIN MAN 

the smoke, brought help. My father was 
working in the field not far away, and Honey 
Johnson was helping him. They came running 
into the clearing. They put out the fires and 
cut the strings and Hberated the prisoners. 
Then my father cut something else — a young 
tree, and trimmed it — about three feet long, 
one-half inch at the butt, and tapering to a 
point. Hurried explanations that they intended 
to put the fire out, and were only in fun, were 
of no avail. As the Johnson boys and our boys 
followed their fathers home, it was a question 
with me, whether our boys had suffered more 
by the whipping than the Johnson boys by their 
fright, but then I reflected that the Johnson 
boys had had no compensation, while our boys 
had had what they thought was great fun while 
it lasted. 



CHAPTER VI 

Our Home Life 

WE played games — baseball, hornaway, 
I spy and others. Baseball was not 
played as they play it now. We 
called it sockball. The catcher or person having 
the ball had to throw it and hit the running 
batter. The ball was as hard as it is now, and 
sometimes the fellow that was hit did not feel 
like playing ball any more that day. There 
was a neighbor boy of about my age with whom 
I often played. His mother had made soft soap 
and had put it in a barrel in the pantry beside 
some empty barrels. As it was summer time 
we had on only a shirt and thin trousers and 
were playing I spy. While I was "blinding" 
he ran away to hide and conceived the idea to 
slip into an empty barrel and pull the cover over 
him. Watching me to see if I peeked, he shd 
the cover over and jumped into a barrel, the 
barrel was not empty but full of soft soap. 
He swallowed some and was scared and sick. 
As they had no bath tub, they put him under 

8 (33) 



34 THE TALE OF A PLAIN MAN 

the pump and pumped water on him. When 
his clothes were off and he was washed, he was 
as red as scarlet. There was not a bath tub in 
the neighborhood. 

In fact, I never saw nor heard of one, until 
after the Civil War. There were holes and 
pools in the creeks where people used to bathe 
in the summer time. When a woman or girl 
took a towel and some soap and started towards 
the creek, we boys were expected to stay in the 
house, or if we went out, we were expected to go 
in the opposite direction from the creek. In 
winter they used wash tubs in their houses for 
bath tubs, and some never had a bath except at 
sheep washing. 

My mother made all of our clothes, including 
our caps. She not only made our clothes, but 
she made the cloth out of which they were made. 
We had sheep and after they were washed and 
sheared the wool was taken to a carding mill 
near Wellsboro, owned by a man named Jacob 
Hiltbold, where it was carded into long, shm 
rolls about three feet long, and about one-half 
inch in diameter. These she would spin into 
yarn on the spinning wheel which was to be 
found in every farm house. It was a large 



OUR HOME LIFE 35 

wheel turned by hand, from four to five feet in 
diameter with a band or belt around it, turning 
a small spindle of the size of an ordinary lead 
pencil. This yarn was colored in the blue dye 
tub. The yarn was sent to my Aunt Chloe 
Howe, who wove it into cloth on her loom. 
My mother had no help except what we boys 
did. She made our clothes, candy and soap. 
She was a hard-working woman and knit our 
socks, and my father cobbled our boots, of 
which we each had one pair in a year. In the 
warmer months we went barefoot. Occasionally 
when my mother was sick we had a girl come 
from one of the neighbors to help, but she was 
more of a guest than a hired girl. She sat at 
the table, and the boys scrapped for the privilege 
of escorting her to spelling schools and other 
neighborhood entertainments. 

The farm furnished us our living. Nothing 
was purchased except tea, coffee, salt, pepper, 
and a buckwheat-cake riser, called saleratus. 
We had apples and cider in the cellar, and nuts 
gathered from the forest — chestnuts, hickory- 
nuts, butternuts, beechnuts — and during the 
long winter evenings we spent the time before 
the old-fashioned fireplace, we boys playing at 



36 THE TALE OF A PLAIN MAN 

checkers, fox and geese, or twelve men's morris. 
My father read or cobbled our boots, while my 
mother knitted or mended our clothes. Occa- 
sionally she would sing some Methodist hymn, 
and then we were all silent. She had a sweet, 
untrained voice, full of natural melody. The 
blows of the hammer grew softer as my father 
drove the pegs into the soles of the boots, and 
our games ceased. 

Then my father would read a chapter from the 
old Bible, and we had family prayer. He 
prayed for us all and for everybody else. Then 
to bed, while he covered the wood fire with 
ashes. His custom was to begin at Genesis, 
and read a chapter in the morning and one in 
the evening, straight through to the end of the 
New Testament, and then begin again with 
Genesis. There was no levity. We had to 
kneel down and remain kneeling until he was 
through, and if a boy went to sleep and had to 
be awakened up when the service was over, it 
did not matter. Before we got into bed we 
had to kneel down in front of the bed and repeat 
the Lord's Prayer and *'Now I Lay Me Down 
to Sleep," no matter how cold it was. I thus 
contracted a habit of saying these prayers from 




Birthplace and Boyhood Home 



Delmar Township, Tioga County, Pennsylvania 
Photograph taken in October, 186^ 



OUR HOME LIFE 37 

which I have never been able to escape, and I 
still have it. I believe in prayers. They may 
not always be answered, but it is a great comfort 
to the one who prays, and never did any one any 
harm. 



CHAPTER VII 

Superstition 

IN my early days philosophers, astronomers, 
psychologists, Ernest Renan and Bob Inger- 
soll, had not disturbed the settled conclu- 
sions of contented people. One after the other, 
the beliefs of the people were altered. Grand- 
father Dean scouted the idea that the world 
turned around in the night. He proved to me 
its impossibility by pointing to a big stone on 
the stump of a tree. If the world turned around 
the stone would fall off, he said, but it was 
always there. It seemed conclusive evidence to 
me at that time. There were many people in 
our vicinity who did not believe that the world 
turned around, or that it was round. I remem- 
ber that the selectmen of the township were 
divided upon the subject; some held that the 
world was flat and did not move. They 
employed the school teachers and examined 
them and passed on their qualifications to teach. 
My father, having been a school teacher in 
Massachusetts, was one of the selectmen. I 

(38) 



SUPERSTITION 39 

remember hearing him tell about an applicant 
for a school who was examined by the board. 
One of the selectmen asked him whether he 
taught that the world was round or flat. He 
answered that he was prepared to teach either 
round or flat, as the board desired. But 
evolution of thought and science gradually 
shattered the beliefs of men. 



CHAPTER VIII 

Mass Meetings 

I RECALL the Presidential campaign of 
1856. Fremont, the pathfinder, was the 
candidate of the new Repubhcan party 
against Buchanan. The men would often get 
up long before daylight and drive twenty miles 
to hear David Wilmot speak at a Republican 
mass meeting. Before the birth of the Republi- 
can party those who were not Democrats were 
Whigs. The Whigs became Republicans. Fre- 
quently the Republicans and Democrats held 
joint debates. First a Republican would speak, 
and then a Democrat would speak. These 
meetings were generally held in a neighboring 
grove. John Simpson was a great Democratic 
stump speaker, while Galusha A. Grow was a 
noted Republican stump speaker. There was 
to be a joint debate between them at Osceola 
Grove, twenty miles away. Nearly everybody 
went, I with them. Simpson drove over with 
friends and stopped at wayside hotels on the 
way and when he got to the meeting he was 

(40) 



MASS MEETINGS 41 

drunk. Grow was speaking before a great 
crowd. Simpson was escorted to the rough 
platform where Grow was speaking, and was 
seated. He went to sleep, and during Grow's 
speech vomited in presence of the audience, and 
slept through Grow's speech. The Democrats 
were disheartened and discouraged. Simpson, 
their ideal, upon whom they had depended to 
answer Grow, was drunk. There was no one 
else to reply to Grow. But Grow made the 
mistake of talking too long. Before he finished 
Simpson had revived. He gradually began to 
show signs of life, and when Grow finally con- 
cluded amid the cheers of the Republicans, 
Simpson got up, and after a pause said : " Before 
I proceed to reply to the speech of Mr. Grow, 
I must first apologize to this splendid audience 
for the disgraceful spectacle that you have 
witnessed. No doubt you all thought I was 
drunk, but I was not. I can never listen to a 
Republican speech without becoming so deathly 
sick that I must vomit. " He then proceeded to 
make a splendid speech to the entire satisfaction 
of his Democratic hearers. If Grow had closed 
his two hours' speech thirty minutes earlier, 
there would have been no Democratic speech. 



CHAPTER IX 

The Underground Railroad 

IT was between 1856 and 1860 that I dis- 
covered that our house was an underground 
railroad station. My father was a quiet, 
reserved man and often concealed what he knew 
instead of delighting to tell it. One night in 
winter I came home from school and noticed an 
air of mystery about my mother. I would 
probably have suspected nothing if she had not 
told me to keep out of the spare room. That 
aroused my curiosity and I slipped outside and 
saw through a hole in the window curtain, a 
black man and woman sitting there. I had 
never seen a colored person before. I asked 
my mother about it, but only succeeded in 
getting from her a command to keep quiet. But 
I was watchful. That night about nine o'clock 
my father took these people away in the sleigh. 
There were no bells on the horses, as usual, 
and no lantern. The next day my father came 
home. I was full of curiosity, and beseeched 
my mother to explain. She finally did so, after 

(42) 



THE UNDERGROUND RAILROAD 43 

pledging me to secrecy. These colored people 
were on their way to Canada and freedom. 
They had been brought to our house the night 
before by the keeper of the underground railroad 
station twenty miles south of us, and my father 
took them to the next station twenty miles north. 
After that escaping slaves at our house were 
frequent. My father was an anti-slavery man. 
He read the New York Tribune and believed in 
Horace Greeley, William Lloyd Garrison and 
Fred Douglas. About this time I first read 
"Uncle Tom's Cabin," by Harriet Beecher 
Stowe, and many a night by the firelight I pored 
over the story and wept at the wrongs of Uncle 
Tom, Eliza and Little Eva. 



CHAPTER X 

Graveyard Ghosts 

THERE was a graveyard on the top of the 
hill on our farm, above our house. All 
of my relatives are buried there, and 
many of the neighbors. Briers and weeds had 
grown up about the tombstones. I used to pull 
them away and read the epitaphs on the stones. 
I recall one: "Remember Friend, as You Pass 
Bye, as You are Now, so Once Was I. As I am 
Now, so You Must Be. Prepare to Die and 
Follow me." I do not remember who was 
buried there, but it does not matter. The 
epitaphs were not usually selected by the 
deceased, but by surviving relatives, and they 
did not always express the character or views of 
the one who slept beneath them. I early 
became acquainted with ghost stories and have 
been thrilled at their recital by some calling 
neighbor, around the old fireplace at night. 
Night is the only time that a ghost story should 
be told. A ghost story told in the daytime 
never has an appreciative audience. There have 

(44) 



GRAVEYARD GHOSTS 45 

been many good people who have lived and died 
in the belief that they had seen ghosts. My 
father did not beheve in them, but my mother 
would have believed in them if it had not been 
for the influence of my father. I will never 
forget old John Ainsley's ghost story of Richard 
Duryea. Duryea lived alone in a large white 
house on the Dean road. He had been a sailor 
and was believed to have been a pirate. In 
those days a man's wickedness was estimated 
by his profanity, and by that test Duryea was 
a very wicked man. He never went to meeting 
and never mixed with the neighbors. He had 
boxes and relics of the sea and his profanity 
was dreadful. He used to be heard singing 
*' Three Dead Men and a Bottle of Rum," and 
another sea song about walking the plank. The 
few preachers who went to see him barely 
escaped without assault, and from all of this 
the opinion prevailed that he was in league with 
the devil, and he was avoided and shunned by 
all. But he was taken ill and the old woman 
neighbor who occasionally went to his house 
to rid it up, reported his illness, and old John 
Ainsley and Andrew Kriner went to see about it. 
They found him very ill, and insisted on a 



46 THE TALE OF A PLAIN MAN 

doctor, but he would not have one. The night 
he died Ainsley and Kriner were sitting up with 
him. It was a warm June night and they sat 
in a room adjoining his. The door into his 
room was open, and the door opening to the 
porch was open. They were dozing when, 
just as the clock struck twelve, they were 
startled by seeing a black animal with sharp 
eyes and quite a large body and short legs pass 
in at the open door, pass through their room 
and into Duryea's room. They heard Duryea 
cry out in great fear. They rushed into his 
room, meeting the animal coming out, but 
Duryea was dead. Ainsley believed that the 
animal was the devil after old Duryea. 



CHAPTER XI 

Midnight 

I WAS very fond of horses, especially a young 
colt which belonged to my father. I called 
him Midnight, as he was as black as night. 
He was only about five months old, and as I 
took him sugar and petted him he grew fond of 
me. I made him a little harness out of strips 
of leather, cut from old boot legs and moosewood 
bark, and used to drive him about hitched to a 
little wagon. He was very gentle and seemed 
to enjoy it. I would go to the fence and call 
him and he would always come to me on the 
run. He undertook to jump over a gate one 
day to get to his mother and fell, injuring his 
back, and for several days he lay on the barn 
floor very sick. I was his devoted nurse. I 
would help him up and hold him, while his 
mother could nurse him, and then I would ease 
him down, and he would lay and look at me with 
eyes appealing for help, which I could not give. 
He died and I grieved over him as I would over 
the loss of a friend. In fact, that was the first 

(47) 



48 THE TALE OF A PLAIN MAN 

grief through death that came to me, and when 
he was hauled away into the woods, I worked 
with a shovel and dug a grave and buried him. 
I was not much acquainted with services at 
burials. I was alone in the woods, but I felt 
that some ceremony was required. I had no 
book, but I knelt down over his body and tried 
to say a prayer. I prayed "Oh! Lord, if there 
is a Horse Heaven, let Midnight go to it. I 
hope there is, as I want to see Midnight again. 
Make me as a good a boy as Midnight was a 
colt. " I had no audience, but a bluejay and a 
woodthrush were singing, and I heard a squirrel 
barking a base chorus. Then I shoveled the 
dirt in, and afterward I set up a slab at the head 
of the grave with his name, birth and death 
upon it. Years afterwards I visited the spot, 
but the slab and all indications of the grave 
were gone. 



CHAPTER XII 

Boyhood 

I DO not know at what age I ceased to be a 
child and became a boy. Some children 
never get to be boys, and some boys never 
get to be men. They grow physically, but not 
mentally. Some men never cease to grow 
mentally until old age halts all growth, and they 
live in reminiscence. I was always fond of 
tricks and mischief, and readily saw the humor- 
ous side of things. There were mink and 
muskrats along the creek that ran through our 
farm, and in winter we used to set a box trap 
for them. A mink's skin was worth from one 
to two dollars; a muskrat's, fifty cents. A 
box trap was simply a board box some two and 
a half feet long by nine or ten inches wide and 
deep, with a lid raised to let in the mink. Inside 
was a stick to which meat was attached so that 
when the mink went in and took the bait the 
lid came down and he was a prisoner. We 
could not see, but by moving the box could tell 
if there was anything inside. If there was, 

4 (49) 



50 THE TALE OF A PLAIN MAN 

we would take the box and the dog into the 
field, with each boy armed with a club, 
when, slowly raising the lid, the mink would run 
out into the deep snow and we would strike 
at him with the clubs, and if we missed him the 
dog would get him. Then we clubbed him to 
death, careful not to break or spoil his skin, 
nor let the dog do it. One morning the trap was 
sprung and we carried it out where the snow 
was deep, and dog and all gathered around. 
The lid was slowly raised, when, instead of a 
mink, out jumped our old black cat. We 
missed her with the clubs. She clawed the 
dog's nose and made for a tree with her tail as 
big as a muff, and that catch was a failure. 
The dog was a friend of mine. I had a harness 
for him and a pair of shafts attached to a sled, 
and used to drive him and make him draw me. 
In this I sometimes failed. I could not make 
him pull me away from the house, but if I 
would lead him and draw the sled to a distant 
point away from the house, and then turn 
around, he would draw me to the house. One 
day there had been a rain on deep snow, and 
then a sudden freeze which caused a hard, icy 
crust. I got the dog and sled to the top of the 



BOYHOOD 51 

hill then got on the sled and started him down 
the hill. The crust was like ice. The sled 
outran the dog, and soon he was dragging behind 
on his back, giving out howls of pain. I could 
not stop the sled and we went on to the bottom 
and far beyond; when we stopped and the dog 
was helped up, he was greatly frightened, and 
had lost much hair in his rapid ride down the 
hill. 

My sister was living some five miles away, 
and I frequently visited her. She was always 
kind to me. There were several families living 
about her, and they visited each other and were 
friends and neighbors. One day she had a 
quilting party. The neighboring women came 
in the afternoon, and they worked at a big 
patch quilt spread on quilting poles. At night 
their husbands would come, and all stayed to 
dinner. I went out into the woods and found 
a half -grown woodchuck. I cut some moose- 
wood bark and tied it around him just back of 
his shoulders and was able to lead him or draw 
him. I did not want to kill him, and was trying 
to think what to do with him, when I thought 
of the quilting party. Women, then, as now, 
were afraid of small animals that seek hiding 



52 THE TALE OF A PLAIN MAN 

places when frightened. I knew those women 
were all seated in the one room. The chimney 
to the fireplace was big enough to let down a 
much larger bundle than the woodchuck, and 
so I succeeded in getting on to the roof of the 
house with my woodchuck, and cutting the 
moosewood strings, dropped him down the 
chimney. I could hear them laughing and 
talking, when suddenly, every woman screamed 
and rushed from the house. The woodchuck 
had captured the fort and took refuge under 
the bed. Fortunately it was near quitting 
time, and the men came in and caught the 
woodchuck, and the women went back into the 
house. I slid down and made my escape and 
at dinner the woodchuck was the chief topic of 
discussion. 

It was interesting to me to hear the various 
explanations as to how the woodchuck got on 
the top of the house and down the chimney. 
Many theories were advanced. No one sus- 
pected me as an accomplice. I have often 
wondered why. One man stoutly maintained 
that a woodchuck could not climb a tree, and 
could not climb a house. Another said a log 
house was easier to climb than a tree. Then 



BOYHOOD 53 

they drifted into a discussion whether or not a 
snake could cHmb a tree, and gradually the 
mystery of how the woodchuck got on top of 
the house was forgotten. I offered no opinion. 
Being a boy, I was supposed to listen in silence 
to my elders. 

I have told about the graveyard on our farm. 
It was seldom visited unless there was a funeral. 
One night I had been to a neighbor's and took 
a short cut home, coming over the hill by the 
graveyard. It was moonlight. I saw what 
appeared to be a woman standing in the grave- 
yard clothed in a long white garment. I had 
never seen it before, and I ran home, thinking 
it must be a ghost. Next morning I did not 
mention it, for I knew that my father would 
pooh-pooh the idea. But I went back and 
discovered that the wind had blown the bark 
from a tall hemlock stump. The sun and the 
wind had bleached the wood inside of the bark 
white, and the bark being blown away, showed 
the white wood of the stump. Ever after that 
I had no belief in ghosts, believing that a proper 
investigation would in all cases explain the 
mystery. 

I attended the district school in summers 



54 THE TALE OF A PLAIN MAN 

and winters. The old school house with its 
great wood stove where we thawed out our 
ink in the mornings still dwells in my memory. 
Mischief was there. I recall John Tyler who 
sat with Clay McCarty on the boy's side of the 
schoolroom. John was a mischievous, fun- 
loving fellow, and one day the school mistress, 
seeing John and Clay cutting up in their seats, 
caught John by the collar and hauled him up 
in front of the school and began to whip him 
with a gad or switch. He was laughing and the 
harder she whipped him, the louder he laughed. 
She finally stopped, and said: "John, what on 
earth, are you laughing at?" John said, "You 
are lickin' the wrong fellow." It seemed to 
him such a good joke on the teacher. One 
morning in summertime two or three of the 
worst boys were early at school. There was a 
chipmunk in the schoolroom, which they caught 
and put in the stove. The teacher, as usual, 
read a chapter in the Bible, and then offered a 
little prayer. Then she gathered the bits of 
paper and litter from her desk in her apron, and 
squatting down in front of the stove, opened 
the door and flirted the litter into the stove. 
As she opened the door, out sprang the chip- 



BOYHOOD 55 

munk, leaping over her shoulder. She went 
over backwards with a scream. There was an 
investigation, but no one knew anything about 
it, and all escaped, including the chipmunk. 
That schoolma'am was pecuHar and came from 
the village. Chauncey Austin, who owned the 
farm around the schoolhouse, was a school 
director. So the teacher said that we must not 
go into his meadow to pick strawberries. But 
there were fine strawberries in his meadow and 
they tempted me. I was fearful of the teacher, 
and finding a beautiful green garden snake, I 
thought to appease her by bringing it to her 
aUve, and so when I came into the schoolroom 
late, and was called up to explain why, I pre- 
sented her with this snake and I supposed she 
would be pleased. It was a beautiful snake 
and perfectly harmless, but she was not pleased. 
She screamed and made me throw it out of the 
door, and then she whipped me for trespassing 
in Chauncey Austin's meadow, and I thought 
she put it on a little harder on account of the 
snake. I concluded then, and have never 
changed my mind, that there is no use trying to 
understand women at all. I had a full brother 
three years younger than I and we went to the 



56 THE TALE OF A PLAIN MAN 

district school together. The teacher required 
every scholar to learn and speak a piece or write 
a composition. My brother never could do 
either, and through various excuses he avoided 
this rule until the teacher had to enforce it on 
him. She announced on Monday morning that 
if he did not have a piece to speak or a com- 
position written on the following Saturday, she 
would punish him. That meant whipping, 
which was the only punishment. My father 
fully approved the teacher's course, and there 
was nothing for my brother to do but write a 
composition, learn a poem or something in 
prose, or take a whipping. He started in to 
learn that poem which begins, "On Linden 
when the sun was low," etc., and had it almost 
committed. We had a queer, overgrown, 
abnormal pup. On Saturday morning my 
brother was diligently studying the poem which 
he had cut out of a newspaper, and was holding 
it in his hand. Suddenly the pup, without any 
intimation of his intentions, opened his mouth 
and swallowed the clipping. We had to start 
for school, which was a mile away, and we 
arrived at the schoolhouse a little late. The 
teacher called my brother to recite or read a 



BOYHOOD 57 

composition. He got up and undertook to tell 
the teacher that he had nearly committed "On 
Linden when the sun was low," but had lost 
it, and now could not remember any of it. The 
teacher asked how he came to lose it and he said 
the dog swallowed it, but she did not believe 
him. He said that I saw him swallow it and I 
got up and told the truth, and said I saw the 
dog swallow it. She had never heard or read of 
dogs taking to poetry, although she knew 
something of doggerel from the crude poetic 
effusions sent by her admirers. She whipped him 
for not having a recitation or composition, and 
she whipped me for lying. It was hard to bear, 
for we were both innocent, as we believed, but 
we said nothing about it at home, for fear we 
would be punished again, and we had doubt as 
to just how to diagnose the situation. 



CHAPTER XIII 

Spiritualism 

tl BOUT this time came the so-called 
/-% Rochester Knockings. There was much 
in the papers about it. Rappings were 
heard and so-called mediums pretended to open 
conversation between living and dead people. 
Mrs. Tyler, one of our neighbors, an ignorant 
woman, set up for a medium and pretended that 
she could bring forth the spirits of dead relatives. 
My father denounced the matter as ridiculous. 
One night at home we all put our hands on a 
small wooden table and held them there for 
quite a while, and then, taking our hands off, 
the table moved quite briskly for a few seconds 
when no one touched it, and thus he convinced 
us that there was nothing in spiritualism. I 
can't see why we should beheve a demonstration 
supernatural, simply because we cannot account 
for it. Time and science unravel and explain 
mysteries, and it is presuming and highly 
egotistical to think that because we do not 
understand a demonstration that it must be 

(68) 



SPIRITUALISM 59 

supernatural. I know that my mother loved 
me and is now watching over me. If there is a 
Heaven she is in it. In times of doubt and 
temptation, if she could come to me and advise 
me she would come. It is wholly unnecessary 
for me to pay fifty cents to a long-nailed, watery- 
eyed, long-haired squaw man to get into com- 
munication with her. So, I have never believed 
in spiritualism, and consequently have never 
seen or heard any spirits. Only those who hunt 
after spirits find them. I admit that many 
strange things have happened, but why think 
them supernatural, simply because we in our 
ignorance do not understand them.^^ The tele- 
phone, wireless telegraphy and other discoveries 
ought to convince us that there will come a 
time when all mysteries will be scientifically 
explained. 



CHAPTER XIV 

Camp Meeting 

THERE was no church building in our 
neighborhood. Rehgious services were 
held in the schoolhouse a mile away, 
except in the summer time, when camp meetings 
were held in the woods. The preachers were 
itinerants, generally old men, who had no special 
circuit or charge assigned them by any church 
or conference, and were generally Methodists. 
There was no denominational organization in 
our neighborhood, and preachers and audience 
were not sectarian. Most all of the preachers 
were exhorters and revivalists. There was no 
doubt in their minds about an actual hell with a 
great lake of melted brimstone always burning 
with fire. I have heard it described many 
times. This lake of fire and brimstone was an 
essential factor in every revival. It was most 
potent at camp meetings in the summer time. 
In the extreme cold weather of winter the people 
were not so much afraid of hell. Some of them 
who had hard work to keep warm were shghtly 

(60) 



CAMP MEETING 61 

inclined towards it, but in the summer time, 
when the days and nights were hot, it was easy 
to preach one into a dread of hell. The camp 
meetings were popular and regularly held each 
summer in McCarter's woods near the school- 
house. There were usually four or five 
Methodist preachers in attendance. The people 
would all attend that lived in the neighborhood 
and many would come from a distance and 
remain all night and while the camp meeting 
continued. A few had tents, others had blankets 
and sheets stretched over poles. There were a 
few rough log huts erected by some of the more 
zealous. There was a preachers' cabin or log 
house. But many slept under the trees without 
any covering. They did not mind it if it rained 
and they got wet. It was a popular belief that 
you should wear your wet clothes until they got 
dry, and that you were liable to take cold if 
you changed them, and then at that time of 
year they did not wear so many clothes as in 
winter, and it did not take them so long to dry. 
Then there was the place occupied by the 
preachers during the service. This was a 
platform of loose boards some two feet higher 
than the ground and covered by tent cloth or 



62 THE TALE OF A PLAIN MAN 

boards. Three sides were closed, with the 
front open, and a bench or table stood on the 
front end of the platform. Outside in front was 
the audience, some seated on chairs and benches, 
and some on the ground. The singers were 
ranged in front, generally on the right of the 
preachers, on seats that were provided for them. 
Some of these preachers were successful 
exhorters, and their appeals were affecting and 
effective. Their pictures of Hell and Heaven 
were masterly, and brought many persons to the 
anxious seat to confess their sins and obtain 
forgiveness. These meetings did much good. 
Many persons were converted and most of them 
remained converted and lived better lives after- 
wards. There was no church bell to bring the 
audience together, but a large boat horn was 
used. It was about three and a half feet long, 
very small at one end, and about three inches 
across at the other. A person skilled in its use 
could make a noise on it that could be heard a 
great distance. They were used on canal boats, 
which was the usual public conveyance for long 
journeys in many parts of the country. The 
preacher. Elder Beebe, whose duty it was to blow 
this horn at the camp meeting in 1855, was 



CAMP MEETING 63 

especially fitted for the task. He had great 
lung power and was very tall, fat and heavy. 
One evening service when the meeting was a 
week old and there had been many converts 
Elder Beebe stood up before a large audience 
and blew his horn. A mischievous scamp had 
gotten the horn and placed in the big end a 
quantity of thin soft soap, putting a weak paper 
over the big end and tying it lightly with a small 
thread. Instead of the usual loud blast that 
set sinners quaking with fear, there was a 
smothered sort of a sputter and all those sitting 
on the front rows of seats got a baptism of soft 
soap in their eyes, faces and hair. There was a 
panic, as no one knew just what had happened, 
and some time was required to wash off the soap. 
No one knew who had done it. The preachers 
were loud and emphatic in their condemnation 
of the wicked miscreant who had soaped the 
horn. None were more violent in condemnation 
than Elder Beebe, who thought it a most heinous 
crime. A few nights afterwards when the 
services were over and the penitents were groan- 
ing on the anxious seats, Elder Beebe found a 
man who was suffering deeply with remorse and 
groaning in anguish. The elder put his great 



64 THE TALE OF A iPLAIN MAN 

big hand on the man's shoulder and said, *' What 
is it, my brother?" The man groaned the 
louder. "Have you stolen something?" said 
the elder. "Oh, worse than that," was the 
response. "Have you committed forgery?" 
"Worse than that," was the reply. "Have you 
committed murder?" "Oh, worse than that," 
said the man. Elder Beebe took off his coat 
and handed it to another preacher, saying, 
"Here brother, hold my coat, I have found the 
man that soaped the horn." A confession of 
sin meant something more than holding up the 
hand. It meant that you had to stand up before 
your neighbors and tell the sins that you had 
committed; not all of them, but the ones that 
were pressing upon you the hardest. The 
Lord, through the preacher, forgave, and then 
if the sin was against another, he or she forgave, 
not daring to be less forgiving than the Lord. 
I remember hearing a neighbor, Amos Tyler, 
say one morning when he was told that Hark 
Furman had confessed his sins the night before, 
"I wish I had been there; I would have found 
out who stole my horse." You could question 
the sinner at his confession. These preachers 
were nearly all good men and lived the lives 



CAMP MEETING 65 

they preached. They did much to educate and 
civihze the country. Old Father Sheardown 
preached in our neighborhood on several occa- 
sions. He was a most noted evangehst and 
believed in an actual hell. They did not cavil 
or dispute about it with educated men. The 
Bible told them there was a hell, and that was 
enough for them. They could not see the need 
of a Heaven without a Hell, and to give up their 
belief in one meant to give up their belief in both. 
They preached that there never was discovered 
a tribe or nation or race that did not have a 
religion or future behef, and in all of them were 
future rewards and punishments. They judged 
the plans of the Creator for the future by a study 
of his plans seen in this Ufe. They saw in all of 
his plans here, a penalty for every violation of 
his laws. They saw no remission of these 
penalties. They came as a natural consequence 
of violated law. They said a man may study 
the works of great painters and architects until 
he can tell their work without knowing whose 
it is, and a study of natural laws made by God 
gives no assurance or groimd of belief that they 
will be different in plan in future life than they 
are in the present life. They believed that there 



66 THE TALE OF A PLAIN MAN 

could be no great natural desire to go to Heaven 
except to escape Hell, and that God never did a 
vain and foolish thing, and it would be vain and 
foolish to create a Heaven without a Hell. That 
if there is a future life to us we must have 
memory of our life and history here, and that, 
as many die in their sins without repentance 
and forgiveness, a future punishment is not only 
natural but necessary for conformance to and 
with every act of the Creator as disclosed to us 
in this life. This kind of doctrine converts men 
and women and creates revivals. In fact, it is 
the only doctrine preached that has ever brought 
about a revival. They did not go about apolo- 
gizing for the sayings in the Bible. They 
believed and enforced their belief upon others. 
If Sunday and Stough, and the other evangelists 
would stop preaching hell, their congregation 
would diminish and revivals and conversions 
would cease. Our preachers did a foolish and 
impolitic thing when Robert G. Ingersoll ridi- 
culed and frightened them into doubts about hell, 
so that they stopped preaching it. We might as 
well strike the penalties out of our penal code as 
to try by persuasion alone to reform people. 
I believe that fear of punishment wields a great 
influence in preventing sin and crime. 



CHAPTER XV 

Baptism by Immersion 

THERE were many Baptists in the com- 
munity, but I never made any examina- 
tion of the difference between their creed 
and that of the Methodists. It was generally 
believed that sprinkling and immersion was the 
only difference. I presume I would have been 
a Baptist if it had not been for one incident. 
I had a cousin two years older than myself. 
He "experienced religion," as it was called, at a 
revival conducted by a Baptist preacher in the 
schoolhouse. I stayed at his house one night 
when his experience was new to him. We slept 
together and he talked to me and prayed over 
me until I got it too. That is, I felt a sort of 
strange new peace and happiness never felt 
before. At that time I was ten years old and I 
went home and told my mother that I wanted 
to be baptized with my cousin. She told my 
father, and my brothers heard them talking about 
it. After my father left the house, we boys all 
wandered into the field back of the barn where 

(67) 



68 THE TALE OF A PLAIN MAN 

the sheep dam was. The water was about four 
feet deep and very cold. My oldest brother 
had the horse book with him and said that he 
understood that I wanted to be baptized. I did 
not answer, so they all gathered about me. A 
chapter on how to doctor a sick horse was read, 
and then I was led out into the sheep dam and 
baptized, not sprinkled, but immersed, not once, 
but several times, and they were dehberate about 
pulling me up. I was then informed that if I 
told about it, the ceremony would be repeated 
more thoroughly. I went home, with an excuse 
that I had fallen in the creek. Next morning 
when my mother asked me about being baptized, 
I informed her that I had changed my mind and 
that when I was baptized I would be sprinkled, 
not immersed. My cousin, Wesley Howe, was 
baptized. An epidemic of diphtheria soon 
afterwards prevailed in the neighborhood, and 
he with his younger brother Oliver died of it. 
In nearly every family where there were children, 
one or more died from this scourge, and in some 
famiUes three and four died. Those that 
recovered were for months afterwards unable 
to walk. I had a bad attack, and would have 
died had it not been for the skill of our family 



BAPTISM BY IMMERSION 69 

physician, Dr. N. Packer. My throat was filled 
with a poisonous membrane, so I was kept 
stimulated with whiskey, which counteracted 
the poison. For a long time after I was able 
to go out, I had to hobble about with a cane. 
Antitoxin was unknown then, and the disease 
was generally fatal. 



CHAPTER XVI 

Called Preachers 

il SA DODGE was quite a successful Bap- 
/-\ tist exhorter. He had no education, read 
very badly and could scarcely do more 
with a pen than sign his name. He would stand 
up before an audience and tell how the Lord 
called him to preach. He believed it, and had 
an earnest way of telhng it that made his 
audience believe it. His story w^as that when 
he was a young man he was sick with fever and 
had been given up to die. He had been very 
wicked and expected to die and go straight to 
hell, and as he was gasping for breath, the Lord 
called him, saying, "Asa, if I cure you, will you 
preach.'^" He whispered, "Lord, how can I 
preach.'^ I have no education and I am a 
miserable sinner," when the Lord called again, 
saying, "Asa, if I cure you, will you preach?" 
His breath grew fainter and fainter. He could 
not see and had just life enough left to whisper, 
"Yes, Lord, I will try. " He grew rapidly better, 
and when he was well, he started out to fill his 

(70) 



CALLED PREACHERS 71 

contract. It was generally believed that people 
were called by the Lord to preach, and those 
who could not claim that they were so called, 
did not impress an audience so favorably. The 
most of them needed such an excuse for preach- 
ing, for they were generally uneducated and 
poor speakers, and read the Bible with great 
eflFort, often making blunders. They were all 
called elders, no matter to what church they 
belonged. Elder Decker was a very poor 
reader. He was a very tall man, and one night 
he was reading, or attempting to read, a chapter 
in the Old Testament, holding the small fine- 
print Bible in one hand and a tallow dip in the 
other, high in front of him. He got to the last 
line on the page, reading, "and he took unto 
himself a wife," when the tallow, burning down 
to his fingers, burned them and he dropped the 
dip. He reached down and picked it up. The 
leaves of the Bible had whipped over into the 
story of the construction of the ark. He knew 
that he must begin at the top of the page and 
he read, "and he pitched her within and without 
with pitch." There was a suppressed titter in 
the audience, and he realized his mistake, and 
tried to find the place that he was reading from. 



72 THE TALE OF A PLAIN MAN 

when he dropped the dip, but could not, and 
so he went on with the service without attempt- 
ing to read any more. On another occasion, he 
read, "The Lord shot Job with four balls," for 
the line, "The Lord smote Job with sore boils." 
He would sometimes improvise and guess at the 
words. It was told of him that on one occasion 
he read, "The Angel came down from Heaven, 
took a Hve colt by the tail and jerked him out 
of his halter," for "The Angel came down from 
Heaven and took a hve coal and placed it on 
the altar." But Elder Decker was much 
respected. He led an honest, exemplary life, 
and his influence was always for good. 

Robert Kelsey was another "called preacher. " 
He stuttered and stammered badly. He was 
not called until he reached middle hfe, and at the 
time was a farmer on the outskirts of the village 
of Wellsboro. On two or three mornings when 
he was in the barn attending to his stock, in the 
spring of the year, and the haymow was fed 
down low so that the cracks of the barn admitted 
sound and light, he heard a voice saying, 
"Robert, Robert, I am calling you. Will you, 
oh, will you, Robert?" He was a stout Baptist 
and believed that he had heard a call from the 



CALLED PREACHERS 73 

Lord to preach. His father-in-law, Mr. Trull, 
was also a Baptist, and very religious, so they 
consulted about it. They thought it was a call 
from the Lord, but what did it mean? They had 
never heard of the Lord calHng upon anybody 
except to preach. Several preachers had been 
called. None of them stuttered, but Kelsey 
had a better education than the most of them. 
They thought that the Lord would help him to 
speak, and so Robert Kelsey started out to 
preach. The meeting was announced by the 
school teacher, and Robert was on hand, as was 
also a good audience who knew him. The 
Lord did not help him any, but he persevered 
and tried to preach at other meetings. The 
audience was quiet and respectful. They 
believed that the Lord called people to preach, 
but why call Kelsey.^ Finally, the calhng of 
Robert Kelsey all came out. Old Ann Simmons 
hved in a little house near Kelsey's barn. In 
the spring her cow had a calf, and Ann had, 
with a few boards and rails, built a Uttle leanto 
or shed against Kelsey's barn, to break the wind 
for the calf. In appreciation of her neighbor 
she had named it Robert. She had taught it to 
drink out of a pail, and while restraining its 



74 THE TALE OF A PLAIN MAN 

zeal and efforts to put both forefeet in the pail 
with his head, she would talk to him, caUing him 
by the name she had given him. It was her 
voice that Kelsey heard. He did not know she 
was there, or that the calf was there. She sold 
the calf soon after he heard the voice, and 
removed the boards and rails. When this story 
came out Robert stopped preaching. 

There was a schoolhouse, by this time, in my 
sister's neighborhood. Elder Avery Kennedy 
had moved on to a farm there with his family, 
which consisted of five or six boys and as many 
girls. He was a small, old man, very thin and 
lean and feeble, but he was a famous exhorter, 
and preached in the schoolhouse. I have seen 
him wrapped in a quilt brought to the service 
in a wagon. They would help him out with the 
aid of a chair, and then lead him into the school- 
house. He would sink down into his seat 
behind the big pulpit desk very much exhausted. 
He was emaciated, and could not have weighed 
over one hundred pounds. 

He would slowly get to his feet, lay the book 
down upon the desk, and, holding to the desk 
with one hand, would slowly read in a halting, 
small, feeble voice. Then he would pray and 



CALLED PREACHERS 75 

announce the hymn. The singing was hearty and 
zealous and some of them sang well, and their 
voices were full of melody. Then the preacher 
would take his text, announcing it with much 
solemnity. When he began his sermon he could 
hardly be heard, so low and weak was his voice, 
but as he proceeded his voice grew stronger and 
louder and he began to make gestures. He 
would move about in the pulpit with firm steps, 
and at the middle of his sermon you could hear 
him at a considerable distance from the building, 
and one could hardly believe that it was the 
same man who was helped into the pulpit. 
Finally, he would slow down, and at the close 
of his sermon he would ask some brother to 
pray; then he would sink back into his seat to 
be carried out and bundled up in his quilt when 
the service was over. I could not understand it. 
I do not understand it now. The believers 
thought that he was filled with the power of 
the Holy Ghost. Maybe he was — who knows? 
They had no doubt that he w^as called. He 
lived and died an honest, sincere man, setting 
an example that was beneficial to all. 

There were skunks about, but there was only 
one market for them. Old Tommy Horten, who 



76 THE TALE OF A PLAIN MAN 

lived a half mile away, was afflicted with 
rheumatism and believed that skunk oil was 
the best remedy for his complaint and used to 
pay twenty-five cents for a dead skunk. Occa- 
sionally we would catch one in a trap set for 
some other animal. We would shoot it or kill 
it with long poles, keeping well out of range of 
its fire and far enough from it to prevent contact. 
Then we would get a moosewood bark string 
fast to it and drag it over to old Tommy, and 
get our twenty-five cents. He would try out 
the oil himself. He did not have many visitors, 
and the calls upon him were brief. You could 
locate his house a long distance away in the 
darkest night. No one ever went there unless 
he had a bad cold in his head and a strong 
stomach. He lived alone, and when he died 
the funeral was only attended by his nearest 
relatives. The services were very brief. They 
dug his grave deeper than usual, and after he 
was lowered in the grave, it was rapidly filled 
in with dirt. 

We had neighbors named Wills. Mrs. Wills 
was peculiar, and said and did many things that 
caused talk in the neighborhood. She washed 
the dishes in the trough after they had scalded 



CALLED PREACHERS 77 

the hogs in it on butchering day. I was there 
one morning just after they had been to break- 
fast. Her son Bill had caught a rat in a trap 
the night before. It was winter and pans of 
milk were on shelves in the living room to keep 
from freezing. Bill had hold of the dead rat's 
tail, and was swinging it in the air when the 
skin slipped oflP the end of the tail and the rat 
landed in a pan of milk. Mrs. Wills was angry. 
She said to Bill, "Now, see what you have done. 
I have got to strain that milk over again," 
which she proceeded to do, putting the pan of 
milk back in its place. 



CHAPTER XVII 

Father McGovern 

FATHER McGOVERN was a kind soul. 
He was much loved by Protestants as 
well as Catholics. His church and par- 
sonage were near a saloon kept by Jimmie 
Reardon. One old Irish Catholic, Dan McDade, 
attending service one afternoon, had in his pocket 
loose a five-dollar gold piece and a copper 
two-cent piece, and when the plate was passed 
around he put the two-cent piece on it, or thought 
he did. It was dark in the church. After the 
service was over Dan went into Jimmie 
Reardon's saloon, and planking his five-dollar 
gold piece down on the bar, told Jimmie to give 
him some of the rare old stuff. Jimmie looked 
at the coin, saying, "You can't buy a drink with 
two cents." "What.^" said Dan. "Oh!" he 
said, as he saw the coin. "Oh, my! Oh, my! 
I gave the Lord the wrong piece. Oh, my! 
What will I do.f^" Jimmie said, "Go over to 
Father McGovern and explain it. He will know 
that you never intended to put five dollars on 

(78) 



FATHER McGOVERN 79 

the plate, and as there will be only one five- 
dollar piece on the plate he will give it up to you 
and take your two cents." "Oh," says Dan, 
"I must do that; but, Jimmie, won't it bring 
bad luck to take back anything given to the 
Lord?" "But," says Jimmie, "you know that 
you did not intend to give it. It was a mistake. 
Father McGovern will understand." "Oh, 
well, I will," says Dan, and started across the 
street to the church, muttering to himself, 
"Bad luck. I don't like it. I am afraid." 
When half-way to the parsonage he stopped, 
provoked and disgusted at his mistake, and 
turned about, saying, "I gave it to the Lord; 
let him keep it. To hell with it." Jimmie 
trusted him with a drink of the rare old stuffy 
and Dan went home to explain to his wife. 
Father McGovern was full of kindness, sympathy 
and charity. He would have given Dan back 
his gold piece and assured him that the Lord 
would not hold it against him. Father McGov- 
ern loved to do quiet, charitable things without 
letting it be known who the giver was. One 
day as he was walking along the street he saw a 
little girl poking among the leaves and crying. 
He stopped and asked her why she was crying. 



80 THE TALE OF A PLAIN MAN 

She told him through her sobs that she had 
been to the store to get something and received 
a dime in change, and had dropped it, she 
thought, in the leaves. The good father got 
down on his knees and tried to help the child 
find it. He knew her family was very poor and 
would miss the dime. He had one in his 
pocket, but if he gave it to her, that would not 
excuse her offense of carelessness at home, and 
she might be punished if she did not return and 
find the dime. After poking among the leaves 
for some time, he managed to slip the dime from 
his pocket into the leaves where the girl was 
looking, and she found it, and the father was well 
repaid to see a sobbing, grieving child turned 
into a happy one, as she said, *'Now, Father, I 
won't have to tell about losing it, will I?'* 
**No, my daughter. God knows it, and your 
mother has suffered no loss; but you must not 
be so careless again." She assured him she 
would not and ran home, glad of heart. 



CHAPTER XVIII 

Johnny Smoker 

il S I recall this period of my life, there seems 
/-% to be little worth relating. I worked 
for the neighbors, as did my brothers* 
when we could get work in the summers, and 
in the winters at cutting and peehng logs in the 
woods. I got only boy's wages, but I was tall 
and strong and could do a man's work when 
quite young. Some of us were always at home 
helping my father. The farm was small and 
he did not need all of us, but we always had a 
welcome home whenever we came back. 

One old Dutch neighbor lived alone on a small 
farm of twenty acres. He kept a horse, a cow 
and a dog. We called him Johnny Smoker. 
I don't remember his real name. He was noted 
for odd remarks. One fall a revival took place 
in the schoolhouse. Johnny did not attend the 
meetings, but some of his neighbors, who were 
interested, warned him that if he did not repent 
of his sins, hell was sure for him. Johnny did 
not know of any sins that he had committed. 

6 (81) 



82 THE TALE OF A PLAIN MAN 

He was honest, harmed no one, but he seemed 
to accept the statement that when he died he 
would go to hell. One evening, after he had 
plowed all day in a cold and drizzling rain, he 
put up his horse and came into his house wet 
and cold, and raked down his fire in the fireplace. 
The dog lay asleep on the warm hearth. As he 
sat with his hands spread towards the fire, looking 
at the dog, he said, *'Why was I not a dog? 
The dog runs and plays when it is warm and the 
sun shines. He barks at the birds and is happy, 
and when it rains he comes into the house and 
sleeps on the warm hearth. He has no work, 
no trouble, no debts, no taxes, and when he dies, 
he is dead. That is the end of the dog. But 
I have to work hard. I have to pay my debts 
and my taxes ; I have no play, no rest, and then 
when I die I got to go to hell, yet. " 

Frequently we used to change work. We 
would all go to a neighbor and help him in corn 
or potato hoeing, or haying, or corn husking, 
and he would come to us and help us an equal 
number of days with his boys. One neighbor 
with whom we frequently exchanged work was 
old John Francis. He had many sons, Robert, 
John, Ephraim, William, James and Norman, 



JOHNNY SMOKER 83 

and one more whose name I cannot recall. They 
were full of tricks and mischief, and had to be 
disciplined with the rod frequently. One eve- 
ning old John and his wife were at our house. 
The boys were at home and it was winter time. 
They had an old-fashioned fireplace with a stone 
hearth which was cracked in many places and at 
night crickets would run over the hearth and 
chirp if it was quiet. There was no one at home 
but the boys, and one of them suggested that 
they blow up the crickets. They took down the 
powder horn and placed a small row of powder 
around the hearth and placed little crumbs of 
bread along on the powder. Then they all got 
into a corner, and one, standing around behind 
the chimney jamb, took the tongs and picked 
up a coal of fire and was going to connect it 
with the powder, when they heard their father 
and mother at the door. The coal was dropped 
about an inch from the powder, when in stamped 
the old folks. The boys had delayed their 
experiment too long. They held their breath, 
while the old man and woman pulled up their 
chairs in front of the fire. The crickets were 
feeding on the bread. The light was dim. The 
old man's chair post was just in front of the coal. 



84 THE TALE OF A PLAIN MAN 

If only he would not shove back his chair until 
the fire in the coal went out, but he shoved back 
his chair while there was still fire in the coal. 
There was a sharp explosion and the old man and 
woman made rapid revolutions in the air. 
They got up somewhat frightened, but not hurt. 
Without a word, the old man took down the 
rod. There was suddenly much chirping, but 
it was not the crickets that chirped. 

There was no barber in our vicinity. Each 
family cut its own hair and the men shaved 
themselves. The wife and mother generally 
did the hair cutting, which was only cut when 
it got too long. A bowl or tin pail was put over 
the head, and the cutter cut to the rim of the 
bowl or pail. Old Elisha McCarty, who lived 
near the schoolhouse, was a queer, eccentric 
man, who loved to quarrel with his wife and his 
neighbors. He did not appreciate anyone who 
would not quarrel with him. Fortunately, his 
wife was equal to the occasion, and satisfied his 
want in this respect. He used to cut his own hair; 
standing before a mirror, he would reach around 
and with a pair of sheep shears, clip off locks 
of his hair, and then tell that his wife would not 
cut his hair. He did not usually do a good job 



JOHNNY SMOKER 85 

as his own barber, and he loved to blame it on 
his wife. Of course, a person could cut another's 
hair better than he could cut his own. A string 
was sometimes tied around the head and the 
cutter cut square around to the string. But it 
did not make much difference. The heads all 
looked about alike. Some men let their hair 
grow long, just to be eccentric. My mother cut 
my father's hair, and also cut the hair of all of 
us boys. I used to think that she was more 
successful at it than any other person in the 
neighborhood. 



CHAPTER XIX 

Local Politics 

WHEN I was thirteen years old I began 
to realize that the politics of the 
township centered in my father. I 
saw men coming to our house before the town- 
ship elections to talk with him. He was the 
best educated man in the township of Delmar, 
and the best known man. I often heard the 
talk. I noticed that my father rarely com- 
mitted himself to any man's candidacy. But 
for two or three nights before election he would 
write out tickets or ballots, and on election day 
he was there early and passed around among the 
voters, followed by me with his ballots or tickets 
in my hat. He said little, but pointed to my 
hat, and men would take their tickets from me. 
His ticket was usually elected by a comfortable 
majority. He held the offices of town clerk and 
treasurer, town assessor, justice of the peace 
and school director for years. He was always 
re-elected. There were no laws in those days 

(86) 




Israel Stone 



William A. Stone's father wan born in 1802, died 1887, 

and lived nearly sixty years on his farm 

Photograph at 80 years of age 



LOCAL POLITICS 87 

making offices incompatible, and he might have 
held all of the offices of the township, and been 
a Poo-Bah, if he had desired. There was no 
money used to influence voters. I never saw 
or heard of the expenditure of a cent in our 
township for votes. My father did not dispute 
with any one the merits of candidates. He 
was a good hstener. He simply heard all that 
the candidates had to say, and wrote out his 
tickets for the man that he considered the best 
quahfied for the office. He wrote the wills of 
all the neighbors, and, as executor, administered 
upon their estates. No one doubted his word 
or disputed his decisions. He was executor of 
the estate of Chauncey Austin. There was a 
pair of bridles in Austin's barn that I very much 
wanted to see on our horses, and so, thinking that 
my father was in charge of things, I brought 
them home and told him about it. I had to 
carry them back and put them just where they 
were when I took them. 

It was approaching the Presidential election 
of 1860. John Brown had made his raid into 
Virginia and had been hung for it. The great 
debates between Stephen Douglas and Abraham 
Lincoln were eagerly read by my father to the 



88 THE TALE OF A PLAIN MAN 

listening neighbors. Hugh Young's letters from 
Kansas to the New York Tribune were spreading 
patriotism, or rekindhng it, throughout the land. 



CHAPTER XX 
The Civil War 

WE were approaching a crisis. The 
Union was threatened. The country 
was on fire with the issue of slavery 
when Abraham Lincoln was elected President 
of the United States. I remember the cartoons 
of the rail-splitter and the roustabout flat- 
boatman. I remember the division of the 
Democrats, their certainty of Lincoln's defeat, 
the great mass meetings of both parties, the 
steady, strong blows of Horace Greeley in his 
Tribune, the desire to attend the pohtical mass 
meetings, the election of Lincoln, his journey 
to Washington, the riots at Baltimore, and the 
events that led up to his first call of 75,000 
volunteers. I remember the fall of Fort 
Sumter and the withdrawal of Southern men 
from the United States Army to join the Con- 
federacy. I was fifteen years old when Lincoln 
was inaugurated. Two of my half-brothers 
answered Lincoln's call and became members of 
that famous regiment — The First Pennsylvania 

(89) 



90 THE TALE OF A PLAIN MAN 

Bucktails — under General Thomas L. Kane. I 
wanted to enlist; I was big enough, but not old 
enough. They were more careful about enlist- 
ments in the early days of the war. 



CHAPTER XXI 

Girls 

I WENT to school in the winter months and 
worked on the farm in the summer. I had 
grown up with older half-brothers who 
treated me very much as Joseph's brethren 
treated him. I had never paid the slightest 
attention to a girl. I knew that the least demon- 
stration of this kind would subject me to ridicule 
on the part of my brothers. I was tall and 
husky, and other boys paid attention to girls 
and went home with them nights from singing 
schools and spelling schools, and I began to 
realize that it was up to me to start out. I was 
just as anxious about it as any one, but I was 
afraid of girls. I was spending the first winter 
of the war with my sister. There was a man 
teaching singing school in the schoolhouse on 
each Friday night and I went occasionally, and 
observed that after the school was over each girl 
had an escort or beau to see her home. I was 
as big as any of them, and I began to think that 
it was expected of me to go home with some girl 

(91) 



92 THE TALE OF A PLAIN MAN 

from this singing school. I felt it to be my duty. 
I had never gone home with a girl, although I 
was nearly sixteen. There was one girl, Fannie 
Sherman, who lived with her father and mother 
and younger brother on a new claim or farm 
in a log house about a mile beyond the school- 
house in the opposite direction from my sister's 
house. It was in early April. The snow had 
lain deep all the winter, but it was now melting 
under the influence of soft rains and warm suns. 
I made up my mind, after deep and mature 
reflection, that I would go home with Fanny 
Sherman on the coming Friday night from 
singing school. I reached this conclusion about 
Wednesday. It was a serious undertaking, and 
to me approached with more serious apprehen- 
sion than going to war. She knew me and I 
knew her, as everybody knew each other. She 
was a sweet, pretty girl, and was very popular 
with all the boys. Why I should pick her out 
I do not know. But then I always wanted the 
best, and I thought she was the best. All day 
Thursday, as the time approached, I was very 
nervous and much perturbed. My appetite was 
poor; I slept poorly Thursday night. Friday 
was a day of unrest. I scarcely ate anything. 



GIRLS 93 

and sat in a sullen, reflective mood until my 
mother thought I was sick and took down the 
pikery bottle. Then I had to declare that I was 
not sick, for a dose of pikery would have upset 
me physically as well as mentally for my task. 
I carefully greased my boots and oiled my hair 
with bear's oil, scented with bergamot. I had no 
collar, but my bandanna neckerchief was clean. 
I ate no supper. I started early. I did not 
belong to the class, and took a seat in the back 
part of the schoolhouse. The singing school 
began. The teacher put the class through the 
scales. They sang, "Three blind mice — three 
blind mice. They all ran after the farmer's 
wife. She cut their tails off with a carving 
knife. Three blind mice." I looked hard at 
Fanny, but she did not notice me, and this song 
or exercise of Three Blind Mice kept running 
through my head until I could think of nothing 
else. I was faint and weak from hunger. I 
had no definite plans of how I was to go home 
with her. I knew there were a dozen anxious 
to go home with her. I was fortunately not 
afraid of any of them. I was afraid only of her. 
I did not fully understand nor think how she 
was going to do it, but I felt she could annihilate 



94 THE TALE OF A PLAIN MAN 

me easily. I can not now account for this fear. 
When school was out, I wedged my way to her 
and kept between her and the other fellows that 
were crowding up to her. I did not ask to go 
home with her. I knew she would say no, but 
I had desperately resolved to do so, kill or cure, 
survive or perish, and so I just elbowed the 
other fellows away. She looked at me, startled 
and surprised, but she had to go home, and I 
was the only one near to her, and so we started. 
When we were well started, she said, "Will, 
are you trying to go home with me?" I denied 
it and said, I wanted to see her brother about a 
steer yoke which we owned in conunon. She 
said, "All right, come along." She seemed 
relieved when I said I was not going home with 
her. There was a ridge of snow between the 
two paths where the horses trod and I could not 
get very close to her. I was thankful for that, 
as I would not have dared to offer her my arm or 
touch hers; she seemed to think that I was not 
going home with her, but simply going to see 
her brother. It was very dark, with thick woods 
all the way to her house. When we got there, 
I said, "Good night, Fanny," and turned to go 
home. She said, "I thought you wanted to see 



GIRLS 95 

my brother? Come in," and in I went. My 
elation at having accomplished the feat of going 
home with a girl was cooled by the fact that 
she did not realize that I had gone home with 
her at all. The boy was not in and I was seated 
behind the cookstove. Her father and mother 
were nice to me. They had had a late dinner 
and were waiting supper until Fanny got home. 
On the stove, just in front of me, in a frying pan 
or skillet with a long handle extending out from 
the stove, was some fresh tenderloin pork frying, 
seasoned with sage leaves. It was very appe- 
tizing and I was very, very hungry. Her father 
asked me questions about our folks which I 
answered as best I could, somewhat frightened 
at the enormity of my crime in trying to go home 
with a girl. In the end of the spider handle 
was a hole to hang it up on a nail, and in my 
e^orts to be composed and answer the old man's 
questions, my right hand was running along the 
spider handle, my front finger slipping in and 
out the hole, when I discovered with dismay 
that my finger was through the hole in the 
spider handle, and I could not get it out. I 
pulled and sweat and shivered, but it was no 
use, and my finger was swelling. What to do 



96 THE TALE OF A PLAIN MAN 

I did not know. Many wild plans formed in my 
mind. I knew that Mrs. Sherman would soon 
come with a case-knife to turn the meat over, 
when she would surely discover my predicament, 
and then good-bye to Fanny and peace ever 
afterwards. I never would get over it. I 
thought of grabbing the spider in both hands, 
rushing out of the door and home, or until I 
could find some one to take it off. But I soon 
discarded that idea. Then I saw Mrs. Sherman 
take a case-knife and start towards the stove. 
I knew my time had come; desperation aided 
my strength, and with my other hand on the 
spider handle, I gave a tremendous pull and 
drew out my finger and concealed it in my pocket. 
I hastily brushed the bits of skin from the spider 
handle and tried to look cool and unconcerned, 
but oh, how my finger hurt, and it was bleeding, 
but I wrapped my handkerchief about it and sat 
silent while she turned the meat over. Soon 
supper was announced, and I was invited to 
eat, but I declared that I was not hungry, I 
had just been to dinner, etc. Neighbors were 
not expected to eat when invited, unless they 
came by invitation, and then I was not accus- 
tomed to eat with one hand. Soon supper was 



GIRLS 97 

over. The dishes washed and Mr. and Mrs. 
Sherman went up into the loft to bed. There 
was a fireplace in the other end of the room where 
Fanny sat. The fire was out in the stove and 
after waiting for some time she told me to come 
over to the fire where it was warm. I went, 
sitting down as far away from her as I could. 
We sat there an hour or more. I said very little. 
I noticed on cleats or slats nailed across the 
joist to the ceiling, pans of milk, placed there to 
keep from freezing, and I wished oh! so much, 
that I could get a drink of that milk. I had 
never been so hungry before, and my finger 
pained me dreadfully. The boy did not come 
home, and I finally realized that I must go home. 
I started to go, but Fanny would not let me. 
It was ten o'clock, a slow drizzling rain had set 
in, and it was dark as pitch. When I saw this, 
I concluded that I must stay all night. She 
went into the spare room on the same floor, to 
prepare my bed, and I chmbed up on a chair 
and eased a pan of milk down and drank almost a 
quart of it. It was so good. I was just going 
to take another drink, when I heard her coming, 
and through fear, or a slip, or something, down 
I went, chair, milk pan and all, with the milk 



98 THE TALE OF A PLAIN MAN 

spilled all over me, while the pan rattled on the 
hard puncheon floor. The old man called out, 
"Fanny." She came in and looked at me. I 
was a sight. I said I knew nothing about it. 
That the first thing I knew the pan of milk 
came tumbhng down upon me. She answered 
her father that a pan of milk had fallen down. 
It must have been insecurely placed on the 
slats, and then she set to work with towels and 
cloths to remove the milk from me. I felt 
sheepish and thought I would make a clean 
breast of it and tell her everything; but then 
I was afraid, and soon she took a candle and 
showed me my room. 

There were clothes enough on the bed, but a 
piece of wood to stop the chink between the 
logs was gone, and wind and rain came through 
this place fiercely. It was a crevice or open 
space about three inches up and down, and 
eighteen inches long, right by the head of my 
bed. I knew that I would take cold unless I 
stopped this hole; and so, after vainly searching 
for something to stop it with, I took my trousers 
and wedged them into the crevice and went to 
sleep. In the morning I was awakened by raps 
on the door, and sprang out of bed, but my 



GIRLS 99 

trousers were gone and the wind was coming 
through the crevice as much as ever. I could 
not miderstand it and looked in vain for my 
trousers. Then I searched the room for a pair 
of the boy's trousers, but I could not find any- 
thing to wear, not even a dress of Fanny's, and 
when I heard another rap on the door, I put on 
what clothes I had and asked who was there. 
Fanny's father answered and said it was late. 
I asked him to come in. I explained my trouble. 
He laughed and said he thought he could find 
my trousers. They had two early spring calves, 
and to break the wind from them had built a 
little leanto, or shed, up against the house next 
my bedroom. The calves, discovering my trou- 
sers, had drawn them through the crack and 
sucked and chewed and stamped on them. 
Mr. Sherman brought them in. They looked 
Hke a frozen mop. A pair of the boy's trousers 
was loaned me. I stayed to breakfast and played 
checkers with Fanny, while her mother washed, 
ironed and dried my trousers, and I went home 
with my reputation saved, and much better 
acquainted with Fanny and less afraid of her. 

The Battle of Bull Run had been fought and 
lost, and the Battle of Dranesville fought and 



100 THE TALE OF A PLAIN MAN 

won. The war spirit was high. The popular 
song was "John Brown's body lies mouldering 
in the grave, but his soul is marching on.** 
It was his spirit that was marching with the 
soldiers. "Uncle Tom's Cabin" and John 
Brown were the inspiration of the North. The 
men who volunteered went South to abolish 
slavery and revenge John Brown and Uncle 
Tom. If there had been only the question of 
division of states at issue, I doubt whether the 
war would have occurred. The North was fired 
with a hate of slavery. It was a curse upon the 
land. I have always thought that Harriet 
Beecher Stowe and John Brown did more to 
rouse the patriotic spirit of the North than any 
other persons. The war dragged along through 
1862 with indifferent success. I was at home 
helping my father on the farm with occasional 
work at some of the neighbors. I had gotten 
over my fear of girls and attended the dances 
in the neighborhood. Mrs. Willard owned a 
house that had a dance hall in it, and coun- 
try dances were frequent. We did not dance 
the tango, but the old square dances of four 
couples, Virginia reel and money musk. The 
fiddler, Andrew Taylor, was the only musician. 



GIRLS 101 

He also called the movements. There were 
some good dancers, but I rarely saw a waltz. 
Most any one could dance by obeying the calls. 
It was alamand left — balance partners and all 
promenade. But we enjoyed it, and many a 
harmless flirtation ripened into courtship and 
marriage. Each boy paid the fiddler twenty -five 
cents. We gave Mrs. Willard twenty -five cents. 
Each boy brought a girl and she brought lunch 
for the two. We danced until one or two 
o'clock in the morning and then saw our girls 
home. There were no chaperones — none were 
necessary. If a young man had a bad name, 
the parents would not let their daughter go 
with him at all. 

I had a bad case of pneumonia in the spring 
of 1862, and came very near dying. I was very 
ill and not expected to live. I would have 
probably died, had it not been that Doctor 
Packer, our family doctor, returned suddenly 
from the army and took charge of my case at 
the most critical time. I did not know that 
he was home or that my father had gone for him, 
when he bundled into the room with his great 
big buffalo-skin overcoat on, shaking off the 
snow and talking rapidly in his small, snappy 



102 THE TALE OF A PLAIN MAN 

voice. I felt like a prisoner condemned to die, 
who is pardoned. I knew then that I would 
get well. I did not expect to until he came in. 
He had treated me for diphtheria and a light 
case of smallpox and knew me. He had a 
cheery way of rallying his patients. He turned 
me over, asked many questions and from his old 
leather saddle bags took out his cups. These 
were little cup-like cells which he placed over my 
lungs and proceeded to exhaust the air from 
them by a small contrivance hke a pump. He 
had made httle cuts in the skin. By this 
operation he drew pus and thick blood from my 
chest. I felt better. Then he bled me in the 
arm and gave me medicine which he carried with 
him. He had emptied the contents of his 
saddle bags on the table and would search out 
the things that he wanted, talking constantly. 
"We will soon have you up; you are not nearly 
as sick as you think you are. If those fool 
doctors had let you alone, you would have been 
well by this time." He may not have been a 
great doctor in the opinion of some, but in our 
family he was the greatest doctor in the world, 
and as I recall the state of the medical practice 
at that time he was the best and most famous 



GIRLS 103 

doctor in the northern tier and he was always 
welcome at our house. He generally drove up 
about an hour before dinner in his high two- 
wheeled gig, with his tall bay horse, Bob. That 
gave my mother time, but if dinner was a little 
late, it was a good one. Such hot wheat cream 
biscuits as she could make! Such fresh white 
honey in the comb ! We always had store coffee 
when he was there. When there was no com- 
pany we usually had pea-wheat or bean coffee. 
Beans roasted brown make very good coffee, 
with rich cream. Doctor Packer was a good 
story teller, and if his stories were mostly at the 
expense of his medical brethren, they were 
deeply interesting. One of his stories I remem- 
ber. A farmer was sick with a burning fever, 
and the doctor treating him would not allow him 
any water, although he begged for it. He was 
delirious, and it required two of his neighbors 
to hold him in bed. In front of the house was a 
big spring eighteen inches deep, with water over 
a space ten feet across. One night the watchers 
got a little careless and the patient broke away 
and ran out to the spring and lay down in it 
and drank his fill of it before they could get him 
out and into bed again. Some one went 



104 THE TALE OF A PLAIN MAN 

hurriedly for the doctor. He said, "It is no use 
for me to see him. Go to the coffin-maker and 
order his coffin. He will die before morning.'* 
They turned sorrowfully away and went home to 
find the patient asleep. When he was awake 
he sent for Doctor Packer. The doctor came 
and continued the water treatment and the man 
got well. The doctor claimed that he had 
learned a lesson, and that thereafter he was going 
to let his fever patients have water. We were 
all glad of that, for we were not allowed to have 
water when we were sick, no matter how thirsty 
we were. A little sip of crust coflFee was all we 
got, and that was warm. It was bread toasted 
to a brown and placed in hot water. This made 
a drink called crust coffee. 

There were many meetings in Wellsboro to 
raise volunteers, and many men enlisted in the 
volunteer regiments. Each county was required 
to recruit a given number of men, and, failing to 
do so, there was a draft in prospect. The 
counties divided the number of men required 
among the boroughs and townships. There were 
many men liable to be drafted who were very 
eloquent in persuading the others to enlist. 
While a lawyer was holding forth on the village 



GIRLS 105 

green, eloquently, on the duty of every patriotic 
citizen to enlist, some one called out, "Why don't 
you enlist?" A man standing next to him said, 
"Keep quiet. We can't spare him. If he 
enlists there will be no one left to urge others to 
enlist and we will all be drafted." But quite 
as large a proportion of lawyers volunteered as 
of any other occupation, and sonle of them 
proved their patriotism by leaving their bodies 
on Southern battlefields. I used to attend 
these meetings, some of which were at night 
in the courthouse. Generally, there were fine 
dinners served by the patriotic ladies, and a 
brass band and members of the church choirs 
gave good entertainment at the meetings. At 
one of these afternoon and evening meetings 
I got acquainted with a girl near my age who 
interested me. I was not introduced and I 
did not even know her name or where she 
lived, but she was a nice, modest, pretty girl. 
Introductions were not necessary. We just got 
to talking together, and when the meeting broke 
up, about eleven-thirty at night, I asked to see 
her home. She consented and we started. I 
supposed she lived in town, but she did not. 
We walked between five and six miles over the 



106 THE TALE OF A PLAIN MAN 

Charleston hills before we reached her home. 
Then I had to walk back to town and then five 
miles home. When I finally got back, just 
before dayhght, I did not feel as much patriot- 
ism for the country or the girl as I did at the 
meeting. It is strange how physical influences 
will quench optimism and patriotism. 

In July, 1863, the great Battle of Gettysburg 
was fought. I was then seventeen years old and 
was anxious to enlist. 



CHAPTER XXII 

I Become a Soldier 

THERE was a battalion of Pennsylvania 
volunteers organized to defend the state 
under a six-months' enlistment. George 
W. Merrick was the captain of Company A, 
and I with four other boys went to Harrisburg 
and enlisted in Captain Merrick's company. 
We were to be mustered in and get our uniforms 
in a few days, and in the meantime were given 
a tent and rations. Before I was mustered an 
order came to discharge me and send me home. 
My father had telegraphed Senator Simon 
Cameron, and he had obtained my discharge. 
I had neglected to get my father's consent to 
my enlistment, or tell him about it, for I was 
afraid that he might object. I came back to the 
farm and remained through the fall and until 
February, when I talked the matter over with my 
father. Captain Merrick's company had been 
mustered out of service and he was recruiting 
another company. I told my father that I was 
determined to go as a volunteer, that I wanted 

(107) 



108 THE TALE OF A PLAIN MAN 

to go in Captain Merrick's company, and that 
if he would not give his consent, I would enlist 
in some other regiment, under another name. 
When he saw that I was detremined to go, he 
gave his consent in writing, and I joined Captain 
Merrick's company. I shall never forget what 
he said to me when I bade him good-bye: 
"William, it will take you a long time to build 
up a good character, but you can lose one in a 
very few minutes." I have seen this verified 
many times. I can't say that it was any excess 
of patriotism that led me to enlist. I suppose 
that I was as patriotic as the average boy of 
my age, but my recollection is that I felt ashamed 
to stay at home when so many boys were going. 
I had attained to a man's height and much more. 
I was six feet four and a half inches tall. I 
weighed about one hundred and thirty -five 
pounds. I enlisted as a private, and because of 
my height was the first man in the company. 
We camped at Camp Curtin in Harrisburg 
while the regiment was being formed. I was 
surprised to find my oldest half-brother as a 
recruit in Company I of the same regiment. 
We became the One Hundred and Eighty- 
seventh Pennsylvania Volunteer Infantry, of 



I BECOME A SOLDIER 109 

which Captain Merrick became the major. 
We had a "paper" colonel, whom I never saw, 
and a lieutenant-colonel named Ramsey, who 
had very little to do with the regiment. Major 
Merrick was the real commander. Then began 
a series of drills and Merrick began to whip the 
regiment into discipline and prepare it for the 
front. My family then had four sons in the 
army, my three older half-brothers and myself. 
Camp Curtin was about a mile up the river 
from the city. About half way between the 
city and the camp was a small roadhouse or 
tavern kept by a man named Bailey. He had a 
very pretty daughter named Nellie, about my 
age, and I used to go there quite often. We were 
good friends. There were a good many women 
in town who frequently came to camp, that 
were very easy to get acquainted with, especially 
after pay day, but they had no attraction for 
me. NelHe Bailey was a modest, quiet, bright 
little girl, who always looked and acted pleased 
when I went to see her. She was not a flirt, and 
was very careful about receiving attention from 
the young men who went to her father's house. 
He was watchful of her. He would sell a 
soldier a drink and, like as not, warn his daughter 



110 THE TALE OF A PLAIN MAN 

against him. I had never taken any intoxicating 
drinks, except at sheep washing at home, after 
standing long in the water. I got sick and the 
surgeon of the regiment did not know what was 
the matter. I went down to Bailey's tavern, 
under leave of absence, where I had a nice 
sympathetic nurse, for Nellie was very good to 
me. I developed a case of mumps, but I soon 
got well, and so did Nellie, for she had them too. 
I had never thought of love or marriage up to 
that time, nor did I then. We were just good 
friends and comrades. 

Our company lay at Camp Curtin through 
March and April. We were in an enclosure 
called the bull pen, which had a high board 
fence all around it. Two or three gates gave 
access to it, The gates were guarded. They 
were open and the sentry stood at one side of 
the opening with his gun leaning across to the 
other side. Women selling pies, cakes, candy, 
etc., stood outside, and the men on the inside 
would reach through the gate opening and 
purchase from the hucksters. Bill Chestnut, of 
our company, looked unworthy of trust, and 
he had to put down money before the hucksters 
would let him touch their goods. I think that 



I BECOME A SOLDIER 111 

my face looked more honest than Bill's, for an 
old woman let me pile up five small custard pies 
on which I was trying to get a discount if I took 
them all, when Bill reached through under the 
gun, grabbed the pies and ran with them. She 
demanded payment from me. I only had fifty 
cents, which was the price of the pies. She 
claimed that I piled up the pies on purpose so 
that Bill could steal them. I denied it, but the 
more we disputed about it, the more I began to 
think that possibly I did. I knew that Bill 
would steal or take things from hucksters without 
paying for them. It was not regarded as steal- 
ing. They usually charged us two prices for 
things, and we thought it legitimate to take 
things from them, but Captain Merrick thought 
differently about it. She told her story to him 
and he sent for us. I paid for the pies. A very 
reputable man, who has, since the close of the 
war, won a name for himself as a good and success- 
ful lawyer, did steal or take things from these 
hucksters. He never stole anything from any 
one else, but he was an adept at removing eggs, 
chickens, pies, cakes, milk and other things 
from the hucksters. I never took anything 
myself, but observing Hank Foote's success at it. 



112 THE TALE OF A PLAIN MAN 

I cultivated his acquaintance and got to bunk 
with him. It paid me and helped him. His 
reputation among the hucksters was bad. Mine 
was good. I saw him steal a three-gallon can 
of milk from a huckster one morning. The man 
had two cans, one on each side of him. He was 
blind in the right eye. Foote knew this, and 
when the man reached around for the can on his 
left side to fill a pint tin cup at ten cents, the 
can on the right disappeared. He turned clear 
around to bring his left eye into range, but could 
see nothing; all was tranquil. Foote had a 
sort of a cellar under the rough board floor of 
our tent. He put his plunder there. We lived 
well, much better than the average. I do not 
claim that I was any better than Foote, although 
I was not on the lookout for opportunities for 
him. He was a success at it, while I would have 
been a complete failure. James Wilkinson 
bought, in a drug store, sweet spirits of nitre, 
but it proved to be nitric acid, and after he had 
swallowed two teaspoonfuls of it, he was given 
over to die by the regimental surgeon, but 
George Kennedy, the hospital steward, knew 
his business. He mixed up some magnesia with 
water and got it down Jim's throat and into his 



I BECOME A SOLDIER 113 

stomach. Jim got over it. The surgeon was 
jealous of Kennedy after that. He was dis- 
appointed because Jim Wilkinson did not die. 

First Lieutenant Morgan Hart became captain 
when Merrick became major; Second Lieu- 
tenant Robert Young became first lieutenant, 
and Gerald Denison, the orderly sergeant, 
became second lieutenant. Bela Borden became 
orderly. I was made a corporal, and I was more 
proud of it than of any office that I have ever 
received. I had two dark blue stripes on my 
arm, and got two dollars more a month. We 
were suddenly ordered to the front in the early 
part of May, 1864. We went on cars to 
Washington, where, for the first time, I saw the 
National Capitol. We were encamped at 
Arlington. There I was taken sick and sent 
back to Carver Hospital, somewhere on Four- 
teenth Street, probably what is now Fourteenth 
and F or G. I was there a couple of months 
when Breckenridge and Early made their raid 
on Washington. There was some fighting at 
Fort Steadman and Fort Slocum near Wash- 
ington. Every one that was able to walk was 
ordered out of the hospitals, organized into a 
kind of Coxey's Army and armed. I was able 



114 THE TALE OF A PLAIN MAN 

to walk, but not far at a time. I had what was 
known as chronic diarrhea, as did nearly every 
Northern soldier, more or less, who was subjected 
to the Southern climate, but we marched out 
to Fort Slocum and lay there for several days 
near a vegetable garden. The Confederates 
were all gone when we got there, but we did 
guard duty, and I found that the onions, new 
potatoes and other vegetables in the garden 
were helping me, that I was getting well, and 
I made up my mind that I would not go back 
to the hospital. When we were disbanded I 
reported fit for duty, and was marched to Camp 
Distribution near Alexandria, on the Potomac 
River, just below Washington, and waited there 
to be sent to my regiment, then in front of 
Petersburg in the Army of the Potomac. I fell 
in with a man there from my county named 
Wallace Moore and we tented together. He was 
quite a good scrub cook and fixed up palatable 
dishes out of army rations and the few vegetables 
that we could get. I suppose there were five or 
six thousand men there, all waiting to be sent 
to their regiments. We got our water from a 
great, deep, wide-mouthed well. The water 
was always murky and rily. One morning there 



I BECOME A SOLDIER 115 

was great commotion when the water got low 
and a dead man was found in the well. He had 
been there some time, but no one had noticed 
any difference in the water. We did not use 
any more water out of that well, but carried 
it a long distance from a creek. It was well 
on in August when I joined the regiment in 
front of Petersburg. There I found that many 
changes had taken place. Lieutenant Denison 
had resigned and gone home, Bela Borden was 
no longer orderly sergeant, Timothy H. Culver 
was the orderly and there was no second lieu- 
tenant. A number of men in the company had 
been killed and wounded at Forts Hell and 
Damnation, and not over one-third of the com- 
pany of one hundred and thirteen answered 
roll call. I had been promoted to be a sergeant 
and I soon fell into the daily discharge of my 
duties. 

We were camped in a pleasant little grove of 
pines and lived very well. An occasional shell 
from the Confederates would trouble us and one 
man was killed by a shell. It was soon after I 
joined the regiment that we were moved out 
to the Weldon Railroad, which we captured and 
the Confederates were driven back. We hastily 



116 THE TALE OF A PLAIN MAN 

scooped up dirt with our hands and tin plates 
and threw it on to logs and rails in front, making 
a rude rifle pit. We piled the ties up and set 
them on fire and threw the rails on the fire, 
which bent them out of shape under the heat. 



CHAPTER XXIII 
On Picket 

THAT night I was put on picket duty for 
the first time. We expected the Con- 
federates who were on the other side 
of a piece of woods in our front to attempt to 
recapture the road and were given specific 
instructions by the oflScer of the guard. We 
were told that if any man went to sleep on his 
post he would be court-martialed and shot. 
We were marched out to the edge of the woods, 
and I, being a sergeant, was placed in charge of 
three picket posts, my own and two on the left 
of me. I was expected to visit them at intervals 
during the night. There were five men in each 
post. I suppose the posts were one hundred 
and fifty yards apart. A nasty, drizzHng rain 
had set in and it was very disagreeable. We 
were all tired, hungry and exhausted from our 
march through the day. And as our supplies 
had not come up we had only what our haver- 
sacks contained. We were told by the officer 
of the guard that a week before, a picket post 

(117) 



118 THE TALE OF A PLAIN MAN 

had been found with their throats cut from 
ear to ear. In front of each post was a man 
called the vedette, who was a lookout. He was 
supposed to watch and report to his post any 
advance of the enemy. The vedette in front of 
our post was Nelse Starkweather, a man that 
I knew very well. In the post was Jud Hall, 
Palmer Wilcox, Wesley Saxbury, George B. 
McGonigal and myself. I started to visit the 
two posts on my left. It was pitch dark. I 
found one, I do not know whether it was the 
nearest or the farthest one away. They seemed 
all right and I started to return. The edge of 
the woods was angular and I could see nothing. 
I walked slowly and pushed through the low 
brushwood and over the logs. Because of the 
darkness I could not tell whether I was in the 
woods or the underbrush. I knew that Nelse 
Starkweather was the vedette in front of my 
post. I knew that he had orders to shoot at 
anyone moving in front of him. I knew that 
he was the most advanced man of our army. 
I lost all calculation of distance or direction. 
I was a non-commissioned oflScer. I was in a 
dilemma. I was more afraid of Starkweather 
than the Confederates. I stood behind a big 



ON PICKET 119 

tree and the rain dripped and there was a chilly 
wind. I did not know my position, but I called 
in a whisper "Nelse. " He answered only a 
few feet away. He knew me and said, "I had 
a rest on you; if you had moved again I would 
have fired. Here, let me take you back to the 
post. " Knowing that he was a deer slayer and 
one of the best shots in the northern tier of 
counties of Pennsylvania, I appreciated the 
fact that had he fired at me I surely would have 
been hit in a vital spot. He led me back to the 
picket post and there they were, all sound 
asleep and snoring. Expecting the grand rounds 
every minute, and knowing that if they came and 
found the men asleep they would be court- 
martialed and shot, I was in a terrible predica- 
ment. There they lay, snoring loud enough to 
be heard very plainly quite a distance. Nelse 
Starkweather crawled back to his vedette post 
and I undertook to waken the sleepers. I 
pulled them, rolled them about, but they would 
not get up. They were asleep or pretended to be. 
They were very tired, having marched a long 
distance, and I could not rouse them. I also 
was very tired and sleepy, and I sat down with 
my back against a tree. I saw that in spite of 



120 THE TALE OF A PLAIN MAN 

my efforts I might go to sleep. I had never 
used tobacco and I knew that it would make me 
sick. Palmer Wilcox always carried fine-cut 
chewing tobacco loose in his blouse pocket, so 
I crawled to him and got some of it and put it 
in my mouth, swallowing some of the juice. 
It made me so sick that I vomited at intervals, 
which kept me awake. I knew that the oflScers 
of the guard would come around and, finding us 
asleep, we would be court-martialed and shot 
and, being an oflBcer, they would probably shoot 
me twice. It still rained and was cold and I 
was watching and listening for the officers of the 
guard, wondering why they did not come and 
"have it over with." I was so sick and miser- 
able that I doubted that I could prove I was 
awake if they did come. There was no sound 
but the loud and regular snores of my sleeping 
comrades. I knew that some one should crawl 
out and relieve the vedette. I tried to rouse 
the sleepers again, but could not, so I got a 
fresh supply of tobacco and crawled out to 
relieve Starkweather. When I got to him he was 
also sound asleep. I could not rouse him, so I 
kept watch. Everything was quiet in front, 
so I crawled back to the men. I could easily 



ON PICKET 121 

find them by their snores. When I got there 
I could hear Starkweather snore in front. I 
passed the night watching both posts, and 
never in my life have I passed such a horrible 
night. The fate of the army might hang on me, 
for I was there to give the alarm by shooting 
my gun if there was an advance. We were in 
an old lane bordered on each side by persimmon 
trees, and the Confederates would naturally 
come up this lane. I could still shoot my gun, 
but I could not retreat. I was too sick to stand 
up, but I took a little tobacco emetic occa- 
sionally and hung on. Along toward morning 
it stopped raining and the moon came out. 
Then I again thought of the men in the post 
whose throats were cut. I tried not to think 
about them, but I could not help it. I sat with 
my back against a tree about half way between 
the post and the vedette. I could see by the 
light of the moon, and suddenly I saw three or 
four men crawling stealthily toward the post. 
I sat frozen with fear. I dare not shoot and 
alarm the whole army. I was only to shoot in 
case a force advanced. I was concealed by a 
bush in front of me. I thought I would wait 
until they got near enough to make sure of 



122 THE TALE OF A PLAIN MAN 

hitting one of them and then shoot. Perhaps 
they would go back. I was in great trouble. 
I could see them crawling slowly but surely 
towards the post. I had often been frightened 
in my life, but never like that, for it was torture. 
No one on the rack ever suffered more than I 
did. I was so frightened that I could then keep 
awake, but I dared not move for fear of dis- 
covery. I knew they would not expect to find 
any one awake. The snorers did not keep time 
and it sounded as if the whole army lay about 
that post asleep. How long this lasted I do not 
know. It finally occurred to me that they were 
a long time crawling up to the post. I shifted 
my position slightly and then could not see 
them. It was growing lighter, and I knew that 
day was breaking. It was some time before I 
could convince myself that there had been no 
one there. It was my imagination helped by the 
tobacco and the story of the men in the other 
post with their throats cut, but while it lasted 
it was just as real to me as if there were men 
crawHng up to the post. With daylight the 
men got awake, stretched themselves and talked. 
I was too sick to berate them. I slept a while, 
but soon got up and when the officers of the 



ON PICKET 123 

guard came around — all was well. The men 
were all awake and looked refreshed. I was 
awake, but did not look refreshed. I made up 
my mind to say nothing about the previous 
night to any one, not even to the men, for I 
knew they could not keep it. They might 
deny being asleep, and I could not prove 
that they were. I had learned that it is 
just as hard for the average man to keep 
a thing like that as it is for a woman, and 
perhaps harder. Gossiping is not confined to 
either sex. 

We had nothing to eat all day. There was 
no fruit except the persimmons, but they were 
not ripe, for there had been no frost to ripen 
them. A green persimmon is much worse than 
a green apple, for they have a griping, puckering 
effect like choke cherries. Fortunately, we had 
nothing to do but sit around, as the Confederates 
did not attack us that day. At six o'clock we 
were relieved by another detail and we marched 
slowly into camp. My tent-mate, Sergeant 
Bricker, had supper waiting, and after drinking 
some coffee and eating some hard tack I felt 
better. He then brought out a watermelon 
which he had purchased. That was my undoing. 



124 THE TALE OF A PLAIN MAN 

I was very sick that night, and I have never 
eaten watermelon since. 

Everything seemed quiet, and Bricker and I 
went pretty well down to our picket line to get 
some shingles that I had seen scattered about 
an old house that had been torn down. The 
ground in our small tent was a little muddy and 
we wanted to make ourselves more comfortable. 
We found the shingles and piled them on two 
poles. Then I took the front ends of the poles 
and he the rear end and we started slowly to 
camp. We had gotten about half way back 
when the Confederates began their attack. 
Cannon balls and shells were flying through the 
air from both sides. We got back to our tent, 
but we brought no shingles. He beat me back. 
I remember thinking that I did not know that 
he was such a sprinter, but he had the advantage. 
He was lighter loaded than I, for I still had to 
carry some of that watermelon. The regiment 
was in column, so we grabbed our guns and 
accouterments and fell into line and soon took 
our places behind the rough breastworks that 
had been much strengthened the day before. 
The breastworks lay in a straight hne all along 
in front of our camp, but General Warren, our 



ON PICKET 125 

corps commander, had constructed a line of 
breastworks beginning in the main hne on our 
right and running from it at an angle of about 
forty-five degrees. It looked like the main line, 
for it ran near to the woods in our front and 
ended sharply. I never saw a prettier sight 
than that made by the Confederates as they 
moved out of the woods beyond this angular 
hne and charged the rear of the line. They 
evidently did not understand that they were 
between two lines. There were oflScers on 
horses, flags were flying, while drums and fifes 
played martial airs. We all refrained from 
firing until they got in the right position and 
then we began firing from both lines, while 
cannon from the small hill behind us poured 
shot and shell into their ranks. They went 
down like ten-pins before a skilful ball. Before 
the smoke concealed them I could see that there 
were no longer any mounted men among them, 
while frightened riderless horses were galloping 
in all directions, some plunging into our fines. 
It was a terrible slaughter and those who escaped 
retreated rapidly into the woods. The attack 
was general. Our regiment was marched at 
double-quick about a mile or half mile to the 



126 THE TALE OF A PLAIN MAN 

right under a heavy cannon fire from the 
Confederates. A shell passed very close to me, 
the concussion knocking me down. It entered 
Company D just next to our company and 
exploded, killing three men and wounding 
several others. We then charged directly in 
front into a piece of woods, driving out the 
Confederates and recapturing some rifle pits 
which had been taken from our men earlier in 
the day. For a time there was no fighting for 
us. I walked back a little way and there behind 
a big tree stood Jim Stanton. He was a queer 
man and could not stand fire. No matter how 
he was taunted and reviled for his cowardice, 
the moment he came under fire he would run. 
Captain Hart on entering into one engagement 
ordered him up in the presence of the company 
and, drawing his revolver, told him that he was 
going to keep his eye on him and the moment 
that he started to run he would shoot him; 
but Jim kept his eye on the captain too, and in 
the first fire he got away and was not seen 
during the balance of the engagement. He 
had a brother, Robert, who was brave and cool 
under fire and was recommended for promotion 
for his bravery in battle. When the war was 



ON PICKET 127 

over there was no man in the Grand Army of 
the Repubhc that could narrate more hair- 
breadth stories than Jim. No man who could 
tell of the hardship and privations of war so 
well as he. He would sing "Rally Round the 
Flag" with an earnest patriotic zeal that made 
every one wish he had been in the army. I 
crept back to my place in the rifle pit, where 
we carried on the policy of watchful waiting for 
the balance of the day. We knew that the 
Confederates lay in front of us, but could not 
see them for the trees. We were in a swampy 
place and it was hard to find ground that was 
dry enough on which to be comfortable. Just 
after dark it began to rain and about midnight 
we found that the rain was washing away the 
dirt from the barricade of poles and rails and 
making our rifle pit worthless. Some shovels 
were obtained from the rear and the captain 
asked for volunteers to get over on the other 
side and shovel dirt on the rails. Lon Mack, 
Dick Francis, several others, and I volunteered. 
We expected that the Confederates would shoot 
at the sound as soon as they heard the shovels, 
and sure enough they did. Francis and another 
man whose name I cannot recall were wounded. 



128 THE TALE OF A PLAIN MAN 

I recollect that it was a perilous undertaking 
and I did not want to go, but I knew that some 
of us had to go and, being an officer, I felt that 
I should set an example, and that in peril the 
officers should place themselves before the men 
and take the risk. It was not bravery, but just 
a sense of pride, responsibility and duty. I 
do not believe that any one ever experienced 
a conscious feeling of bravery. I noticed that 
there was a big tree several feet from the rifle 
pit in front of me. I had noticed it during the 
day and when I got over the rifle pit I just 
naturally got in front of that tree. I could do 
as good work with my shovel there as anywhere 
else, and I shoveled hard in perfect safety. The 
tree did not interfere with me at all. I did not 
object to it, but think I would have objected 
if any one had tried to take it away. No one 
else seemed to want that place. I suppose that 
it did not occur to any of them, but it did to me, 
and it may have influenced me some to volunteer 
promptly, and may have caused me to remain a 
little longer than the rest. It is so long ago that 
I cannot remember all the little details of my 
life. No one ever spoke about the tree and I 
never mentioned it, but we finished the job and 



ON PICKET 129 

those who were not wounded resumed their 
places. In the morning the Confederates with- 
drew and we were moved back to higher and 
better ground. A thing that seemed curious to 
me happened at this battle. We had a quiet, 
level-headed man in our company by the name 
of Travis. For a day or two before the fight 
this man said that he would be killed in that 
battle. He wrote to his wife and friends, 
predicting his death. The captain heard of it 
and told him that he need not go into the fight, 
that he would detail him for some service in the 
rear. He knew that Travis had shown his 
courage and that he was sincere in his behef 
that he would be shot. But Travis dechned to 
stay in the rear. He went into the fight and 
was shot dead at the first fire. I dreamed one 
night after my experience on picket that I was 
shot through the head and killed. I thought 
that I fell down about twenty feet and struck 
on a big fluffy feather bed. I remember thinking 
that if I was sure that I would land on a soft 
feather bed I would not object to being shot, 
but I was partly asleep when I thought that. 
I knew when awake that if what little theology 
I had heard was true, I would not land on a 

9 



130 THE TALE OF A PLAIN MAN 

fluffy soft feather bed. I would probably land 
where it was warm enough, but there would be 
no feather bed there; and so I never courted 
death, and do not now. I suppose that there is 
no use in trying to dodge it when it does come, 
but I am not beckoning to it. 



CHAPTER XXIV 
In Camp 

WE now lay in a little grove or woods of 
small pine trees, and each man made 
himself a couch or bunk of pine 
needles. By driving four stakes into the ground 
with forked tops, then laying cross pieces and 
small poles on the cross pieces with larger poles 
on the sides and ends, then filling in with pine 
needles in plenty, we had a springy comfortable 
bed. With our oilcloth blankets spread on 
poles about two feet above the couch to keep off 
the dew and then a blanket to cover us, we were 
all right. Here we got letters from home and 
wrote them. Here our sutler joined us with all 
sorts of things to sell — cakes, pies, candy, 
popcorn, stationery and stamps, and here we 
were paid off. Some of us who had been trusted 
before and paid could get credit with the sutler. 
They were always with us except when we were 
too close to the enemy. The envelopes coming 
to us and those we sent had little patriotic songs 
upon them in fine print, covering sometimes 

(131) 



132 THE TALE OF A PLAIN MAN 

two-thirds of the envelope. It required some 
taste and skill to select the envelope. It would 
not do to send a letter to your mother with the 
song of "The Girl I Left Behind Me" or to 
write to your best girl with the song on the 
envelope of "Who Will Care for Mother Now.?'* 
But the song on the envelope must bear the 
proper relation to the person addressed. Our let- 
ters would come in envelopes with songs on them 
of "We Shall Meet, but We Shall Miss Him," 
"There Will be One Vacant Chair" and "Where 
is My Boy To-night. " These envelopes were 
of all colors, scarlet, pink, white, blue and gray. 
They were very popular at home and in the army, 
and many a poor letter writer was helped out 
very much by the selection of an envelope that 
bore the proper song. It was wonderful how 
patient the folks were at home, and how they 
cheered us with their letters. Boys wrote 
letters to girls at home that they scarcely knew, 
and the girls were very nice to answer them. 
Of course, as poor speakers make the most 
speeches, the poorest writers wrote the most 
letters. 

What still lives in my memory was the camp- 
fire. In the early part of the evening before 



IN CAMP 133 

taps, we sat about the fires in groups and 
listened to stories and songs. There was 
always one or two good singers and story tellers 
in every group of men and their songs and 
stories were always in demand. Stories were 
told of home folks and of people that we knew, 
and their oddities, and as the fire died down to a 
bed of coals and one by one the men went to 
their bunks, a few of us would still remain and, 
like Dickens' Lizzie Hexam, gaze into the 
glowing coals in the hollow down by the flare, 
where our imaginations would weave bright 
pictures of home, mother and friends. Then to 
our bunks and sleep, to be roused out in the 
morning by the fife and drum playing the 
reveille. 



CHAPTER XXV 

Ordered to Philadelphia 

jIBOUT October first our regiment was 
/"% ordered to Philadelphia and placed in 
Camp Cadwalader, on the outskirts of 
Philadelphia, for duty in Pennsylvania. I have 
never known why we went to Pennsylvania, 
for there were no more raids of any consequence 
into Pennsylvania after Gettysburg. Camp 
Cadwalader covered some fifty or more acres, 
and was enclosed by a high board fence. There 
were barracks and offices inside, and a number 
of officers were stationed there. They glistened 
with gold braid, brass buttons and epaulettes. 
New regiments of recruits were organized in 
Philadelphia. The horses of the Philadelphia 
officers were accoutered with saddles and bright 
cloths ornamented with shining metal. These 
officers thought that they saved the Union, 
although they never got nearer the front than 
Philadelphia. They had political influence and 
drew the same pay as men of the same rank in 
front. Our regiment was ordered on dress parade 

(134) 



ORDERED TO PHILADELPHIA 135 

the day after we got there. Of course we came 
back when ordered and were in our fighting 
clothes. We had no extra clothing, as we had 
thrown it away on the march. The average man 
had a woolen shirt, a pair of trousers, a hat, blouse 
and shoes. I had owned for a time while in 
front a pair of socks, but I had none when we 
went to Philadelphia. We had no trouble with 
dress parade at the front, but neither our 
appearance nor our evolutions satisfied these 
gorgeous military officials who commanded 
Camp Cadwalader. A stranger could not tell 
the rank of all of our officers. Some of them 
had no shoulder straps, but we knew them, for 
they had led us in battle. There was no mistake 
about the camp officers, for they had braid on 
their trousers, coats and caps, and shoulder 
straps large enough for shelter when it rained. 
Had the Confederates ever come to Philadelphia 
and discovered these officers and it had been 
explained to them what they were, they would 
have beat a hasty retreat. They were great 
on the salute and its return. That is likely the 
only thing military that they knew. We got 
into position and paraded before this brilliant 
bunch. When it was over a little fellow read 



136 THE TALE OF A PLAIN MAN 

an order or composition which was a criticism 
on our personal appearance. If they had given 
us time we could have improved it. They 
evidently thought that the officers at the front 
looked as they did. There was a battalion of 
invalids organized for camp duty from men who 
had been wounded in battle. Nearly every 
man was minus a leg or an arm or an eye, but 
they were scrubbed and scoured and ironed 
until they looked scrumptious. Our comparison 
to them was unfavorable to us. So they told 
us, in the order, that we were not soldierly and 
neat. Now, if there is anything that oflFends, 
it is a criticism of personal appearance. Neither 
we nor our oflficers liked the order. They 
marched up to headquarters and denounced it. 
Our captain, Morgan Hart, expressed himself 
freely about it, and there was profanity in the 
air. So they were put under arrest and court- 
martialed. The military court was composed 
of wise stay-at-homes. Some of our officers 
were convicted and dismissed from the service 
for insubordination — Captain Hart among the 
number. In Captain Hart's dismissal the 
country lost the services of a brave, capable 
officer. It was a shame, perpetrated by 



ORDERED TO PHILADELPHIA 137 

cowardly home guards who were jealous of the 
courage which they did not possess. The close 
of the war in the following April absorbed all 
attention and this wrong has never been righted. 



CHAPTER XXVI 

Home on Furlough 

SOON after we reached Camp Cadwalader 
I obtained a furlough for two weeks and 
went home. I got to Wellsboro about 
nine o'clock at night and walked out to the 
farm, reaching there about ten-thirty. My 
parents did not know that I was coming. As 
soon as I got near the house I saw the dog 
coming towards me, barking and showing a 
decided objection to my coming nearer. I sat 
on top of the fence and was amused at his 
war-like attitude. He was my dog and there 
was always a great friendship between us. He 
was barking and very hostile, for he did not know 
me in my blue uniform and I had been away 
eight months. I finally spoke his name, and 
he knew me at once when he heard my voice. 
His attitude suddenly changed, so I got down 
from the fence. He manifested great delight, 
and I never saw such evidence of joy from man 
or beast before. He would run around me, lick 
my hands and rub his face against my knees and 

(138) 



HOME ON FURLOUGH 139 

was wild with delight. There was a full moon 
and it was quite light and the old farm and 
buildings never looked so good to me before. 
I knew that all in the house were in bed and 
asleep and I thought I would get into the house 
and up-stairs without wakening any one. I 
had to go through the room where my father 
and mother slept. I got through the kitchen 
window and was tiptoeing through their room 
when my mother began to scream. She had 
dreamed that I was killed and that she saw me. 
They did not know that the regiment had gone 
to Philadelphia. The whole house was aroused 
and we had some trouble to quiet her and 
satisfy her that it was really I, alive, instead of 
my ghost. But finally she became satisfied and 
things settled down into a normal condition. 
I was everywhere welcomed by the neighbors 
and friends and enjoyed my return home very 
much. I went to country dances and had a 
splendid time with my friends. 

I reported at Camp Cadwalader on the day 
my furlough expired and again took up my 
duties. 



CHAPTER XXVII 

Back in Camp 



T 



"A HE dismissal of Captain Hart raised 
Lieutenant Young to the rank of cap- 
tain, Sergeant Culver to first lieutenant, 
and I became second lieutenant, although I 
was not mustered for a long time afterwards, 
but discharged the duties of orderly or first 
sergeant. We kept up our company and 
regimental drills and had dress parades and 
inspections. There were vacant fields near and 
we frequently went outside the camp to drill 
and for inspection. We were paid our back 
money and drew new clothes and supplies. 
Captain Young was a splendid man in many 
ways, but he was not a military man. He was 
kind and indulgent to his men and would resent 
any unfair treatment to any of them by any 
officer. He was about forty or forty-five years 
old. He was a moulder and had worked all of 
his life over moulds in which plow irons and 
other parts of machinery were cast. He was 
over six feet tall and his work compelled him 

(140) 



BACK IN CAMP 141 

to be stooped down much of the time, and as a 
result of this he acquired a stoop or bend in his 
back that prevented him from standing in the 
position of a soldier. He stood, even when 
trying his best, at an angle of fifteen or twenty 
degrees from perpendicular. He was a brave 
soldier and very popular with his men. He 
was quite a good boxer and knew something of 
the manly art and he sometimes enforced 
discipline by this means. He did not like to 
put a man in the guard-house for a slight viola- 
tion of rules and he would waive his rank and 
settle their differences sometimes as they were 
settled before they entered the service. He was 
quite capable and after several experiences most 
of the offenders preferred the guard-house. He 
knocked the adjutant down once for trying to 
force a man out of a seat in a car, that he might 
occupy it, but the drill and military movements 
he never could get the hang of, and could not 
always remember the commands to give. One 
day we were out on inspection and he wanted to 
get the company through a gap in a rail fence 
on to the other side where the ground was dryer. 
He would move the men up in line of battle, one 
row behind the other. The right was opposite 



142 THE TALE OF A PLAIN MAN 

the gap. The command was, "By the right 
flank, file left," but he could not think of it, 
so he would command, "Right about, march," 
and we would move back a distance and then 
it would be, "Right about, march." We all 
knew what was the matter but none dared to 
help him out, for he would have been very- 
angry, and so, after he had marched us up and 
down before the fence several times, he com- 
manded us to "Halt!" and said, "Break ranks, 
and when you form again just form on the other 
side of that d — n fence if you please!" 

Our company and Company D occupied one 
barrack building. One end of it was partitioned 
off for the non-commissioned officers. I still 
bunked with them. Henry M. Foote had been 
made a corporal. He still foraged occasionally 
on the hucksters and was as skilful as ever. 
He wanted a furlough and had applied to 
Captain Young, but the furlough was slow in 
coming. The captain was annoyed by the loss 
of some seventeen stands of arms while in front, 
for which he was responsible. So we were on 
the lookout for them. Foote said to me one 
morning that he had found them and uncovered 
a gun box, and sure enough there they were. 



BACK IN CAMP 143 

The captain was greatly relieved, and Foote got 
his furlough. I said nothing, but when I saw 
that the guns and accouterments were all new, 
and knowing that a new regiment lying near 
us had just been supplied with arms, also that 
Foote had found the guns at night, I had 
suspicions. But the liability of one captain 
was transferred to several who could better 
stand the loss, and the war closing soon after- 
wards the new regiment never had occasion to 
use them and they were probably never missed. 
Captain Young never had any suspicion of any 
one. If he had, he would have started an 
inquiry which would have likely brought trouble 
to Foote, who acted with the best of intentions. 
Foote never told me where he found the guns 
and I never asked him. 

We lay in Camp Cadwalader during the winter 
and spring of 1865, and it was easy to get a pass 
into the city. There was a considerable distance 
between the camp and the city occupied by a 
few houses. An old wooden hotel, called the 
Cross Keys, stood by the roadside, and the sign 
was two large keys crossed. This neighborhood 
was dangerous at night. Bad men called "prairie 
chickens" would knock down and rob our men 



144 THE TALE OF A PLAIN MAN 

when coming home from the city, usually with 
heavy loads to carry. I was at a theater one 
night with Norm Bellinger of our company. 
When we left the theater we found that it had 
been snowing so hard that all street car traffic 
had stopped, so we started to walk back to 
camp. It was a long, tiresome walk through 
the deep snow and it was after midnight when 
we got to the Cross Keys. By this time it had 
stopped snowing and there was a moon. I was 
plowing through the snow ahead, Bellinger 
following me. I saw a woman ahead of me who 
seemed to walk with difficulty. When we were 
nearly up to her she sank down in the snow. 
I raised her up. She had gray hair and seemed 
old and ill. She said she had been begging to 
get food for her two young daughters who were 
starving, so I told her I would take her home. 
Norm demurred to this, for he was suspicious. 
She said, "No, leave me here. I will soon be 
asleep and my daughters are probably dead by 
this time." But I was full of sympathy and 
told Norm to go on to camp, that I was going 
home with her. I was not suspicious. The only 
thing I feared was that the daughters would 
die before I got there to get them food. Norm 



BACK IN CAMP 145 

said that if I was bound to go he would go too, 
but that he did not hke the looks of things. 
We started. She led us down a road to the 
city and then down an alley to a house on the 
corner and then up a pair of outside stairs to 
the second story. She opened a door and we 
passed into a room poorly furnished. She lit a 
lamp and motioned to me to follow her through 
another door into a room which was lighted only 
by a window, but I heard the latch click as I 
passed through the door. The woman dis- 
appeared. I tried the door I had passed through 
and found it locked. Norm called me. I told 
him that the door was locked. It swung towards 
me. Bellinger was over six feet high, weighed 
about two hundred pounds and was as strong as 
an ox. He backed up to the other side of the 
room and came against that door with his 
shoulder. It flew off its hinges and he sprawled 
into the room. We ran into the first room out 
of the outside door and down the stairs two at a 
jump. When we reached the bottom we heard 
voices calling, and looking up I saw three or 
four men at the top of the stairs. We went 
up the alley a good deal faster than we came 
down it, and it was two o'clock before we got 

10 



146 THE TALE OF A PLAIN MAN 

to camp. We did not tell about this adventure. 
Norm wanted to tell it, but I coaxed him not to. 
Afterwards I remembered that while the old 
woman could not walk in the street without 
leaning on me, she went up the stairs without 
help and had no difficulty in keeping in advance 
of us. I have often observed how easy it is to 
arouse a man's sympathy where there is a 
suffering woman. Had she told me that the 
old man was starving I would probably have 
found some other way to help, but I do not 
think I would have gone up-stairs to see the old 
man starve. 



CHAPTER XXVIII 

Lincoln's Assassination 

LEE surrendered to Grant in April, 1865, 
.and then came the assassination of 
Lincoln. Those were exciting days. 
When Lincoln's body was brought to Philadel- 
phia on its way to Springfield, our regiment 
acted as escort. The people had the greatest 
desire to see him. The casket was placed on a 
high vehicle, trimmed in black and drawn by 
ten black horses all caparisoned with crape. 
Each horse was led by a colored man dressed in 
mourning. It was with the greatest difficulty 
that we kept the crowd from pressing upon the 
vehicle. Occasionally we were delayed for ten 
or fifteen minutes. We finally reached Indepen- 
dence Hall, where the casket was placed on 
wooden rests, and his face exposed to view. It 
was shrunken and relaxed. I had seen him 
when alive, but his face did not have much 
resemblance to the face I had seen in Wash- 
ington. All night the people poured through 
Independence Hall, passing on each side of him 

(147) 



148 THE TALE OF A PLAIN MAN 

until early morning, when he was taken to 
Kensington Station. It seems difficult to believe 
that one can have any real grief for a person he 
has never seen, but on this occasion I saw men 
and women weeping and in great grief and 
sorrow. Lincoln was loved by the people as no 
man in this country has ever been loved. 
Washington was respected and admired, but 
not loved as Lincoln was. Many stories of 
pardons to young soldiers were told of him and 
many of them were true. I do not suppose that 
I can say anything of Lincoln that has not been 
said, and it is not my purpose to try. What I 
want to do is to tell my story in a plain, natural 
way so that those who read it will see in it 
practically what has happened or may happen 
to them. My regiment took part in General 
Meade's review. I saw him sitting superb and 
soldierly on his horse as we passed in review. 
The war was over and our regiment was 
separated. Our company went to Harrisburg, 
where we lay under loose discipline until we 
were mustered out of the service in August, 1865. 



CHAPTER XXIX 

Home Again 

WE went home to find that we were not 
nearly as popular when the war was 
over as we had been during the war. 
The thoughts of the people were again turned 
to farming and other pursuits. I had sent home 
to my father the pay and bounty received. He 
had invested it in an adjoining small farm and 
the understanding was that I was to stay with 
my parents and take care of them, and when 
they were gone I was to have both farms. I 
went to the Wellsboro Academy during the fall 
term of 1865. The principal was Professor 
Van Allen, who had two assistants, his sister, 
Miss Van Allen, and Miss Holland. They were 
good teachers and if I did not learn much it 
was not their fault. In the winter I taught the 
public school in the Baldwin School District 
at twenty dollars a month and boarded around 
among the families who had children in school. 
I got along very well and administered the 
expected corporal punishment and thereby 

(149) 



150 THE TALE OF A PLAIN MAN 

obtained the respect and good opinion of the 
parents. If there was not some one whipped in 
that school for a couple of weeks, doubts would 
arise as to the qualifications of the teacher. 
I did not like the spare room where no one slept 
except when company came, but the people were 
very kind to me. I attended the Wellsboro 
Academy in the spring term, or a part of it, and 
then, in early April, went home to live there 
during the balance of my life. I was twenty 
years old. If I had married on this resolution 
I would have been a fixture, but, fortunately 
or unfortunately, no girl had taken sufiicient 
interest in me to cause me to think about 
marriage. I started in to make maple sugar on 
the land that had been bought for me. It was 
very discouraging and disagreeable work. The 
sap did not run very well. It rained much of 
the time. The wood did not burn and no 
matter which side of the fire I was on, the 
smoke blew into my eyes. My younger brother, 
Grier, and I worked a whole week carrying sap 
on sap yokes to boil down into syrup. A sap 
yoke is a hollowed piece of wood resting on the 
shoulders and to each end is suspended a cord 
and hook, then a pail or bucket was hooked on 







The Authors Uld Home 



As it appears today 



HOME AGAIN 151 

to each hook. In this way you could carry 
two pails filled with sap easier than one by hand. 
At the end of the week we had two large pails 
of quite thick syrup. I was going home with a 
pail of syrup hooked on to each end of the sap 
yoke. He was carrying the lantern to show me 
where to step, for it was very dark. I stumbled 
on a root, fell and spilled all of the syrup. 
Here was a whole week's work gone and it was 
discouraging. I began to have some doubts 
about farming, but there was nothing else for 
me to do, as my education was poor. I had 
not improved my opportunities. But summer 
came and amid the haying, young people and 
country dances I forgot the accident to the 
maple syrup. 

One night in haying time we all went down to 
Wellsboro in a hay wagon to hear Professor 
F. A. Allen, the principal of the Mansfield 
State Normal School, lecture on the benefits of 
an education. There were about a dozen 
couples packed in on the loose hay. We had 
no interest in education, and could see no 
benefit in it. There were songs and stories and 
much laughter on the way. The lecture was in 
the courthouse. We went just because it gave 



152 THE TALE OF A PLAIN MAN 

us an excuse for going somewhere together. 
I had heard people advocate the benefits of an 
education, and they did not interest me, but I 
had never heard Professor Allen lecture. From 
the first, he held my attention and interest. 
He closed by saying that want of money should 
not prevent any one from obtaining an educa- 
tion. He said one could be had at the normal 
school, and if there was any young man or 
woman there who wanted an education and had 
no money, they could come to his room at the 
hotel the next morning and he would show them 
how to get it without money. I had no money. 
What little I had was invested in the farm that 
had been bought for me. I was much impressed 
with what the professor said. The next morning 
I got up early and walked to Wellsboro and 
called upon Professor Allen. I was the only 
caller. I told him I wanted to know how I 
could go through normal school without money. 
He asked me a number of questions. The 
result was that when the normal school opened 
in September I was one of the students. I 
swept the halls and attended to the fires in the 
building during my first year, for my board and 
tuition. The second year, finding my duties 



HOME AGAIN 153 

interfered too much with my studies, the 
professor took my note for board and tuition. 
I graduated in June, 1868, but what a time I 
had, I was six feet four and one-half inches tall. 
I was put into a class in mental arithmetic with 
little girls and boys. I would not have stayed 
there a week if it had not been for Alice Landis, 
a girl at the Wellsboro Academy I had learned 
to like. She was of superior mind and a splendid 
scholar. I had great admiration and respect 
for her. She wrote me such letters of encourage- 
ment that I was ashamed to quit and have her 
say, "I was afraid you were a quitter. Well, 
there is no use of your trying any more. Go 
back to the farm and forget it. " And so I hung 
on and worked. At first my work did not seem 
to do a bit of good. I could not or did not 
acquire the lesson, but I got a letter from Alice 
every day and I kept at it. After a while I 
found that to acquire anything I must empty 
my mind and thoughts of everything else; that 
one could not fill a pitcher that was already full; 
that to fill it with milk you must first pour the 
water out; and so I gradually began to learn 
how to learn. I got over the idea of "What's 
the use of knowing Latin when no one in the 



154 THE TALE OF A PLAIN MAN 

world speaks it?" I grew to realize that the 
studies were to discipline the mind, as a drill 
disciplines the soldier. They do not drill in 
battle and they no longer speak Latin in Rome, 
but study trains and disciplines the mind to do 
other things. I became quite a good student, 
thanks to Alice Landis. We were not in love; 
neither of us expected to marry the other, but 
she was a natural missionary and she saw in me 
a first-class heathen. In the two-years', or 
elementary, course I took also a number of 
studies in the four-years' course. There were 
many young men and women in the school who 
had grown up on farms in Bradford, Tioga and 
other counties. None of them were quite as 
ignorant as I was, but they were not informed 
on many things. The school rented the text- 
books to the students when desired. A class in 
philosophy was organized, and Professor Allen 
taught it. I joined it, with twenty other young 
men and women, among them Leonard Austin. 
There were not books enough to supply each 
student the first day, but Professor Allen dis- 
tributed what they had and told us to borrow 
from each other. We were to meet the next 
day to recite. "Wells' Natural Philosophy" 



HOME AGAIN 155 

was the text-book used. The professor began 
at the head of the class and asked questions. 
He asked Austin: "What is natural physics?" 
Austin arose and blandly said, "Professor, I 
had no book, but I think I can answer that 
question." "Very well," said the professor, 
"What is natural physics .f^" "Salts, pills and 
castor oil, " said Austin with evident confidence 
that he had answered the question correctly. 
After the laughter had quieted and Austin saw 
his mistake, he asked to be excused from 
further attendance on the class that day. 

I found many congenial spirits among the 
students at Mansfield: A. D. Wright, Ben 
Van Dusen, George Doane, Harry Jones, Jim 
McKay, Francis Wright, Lizzie Hill, Fannie 
Climenson, Sue Crandall, Ezra B. Young and 
many others. I formed a very strong friendship 
for Jim McKay. He was a farmer's son from 
Delaware County. We roomed together and 
slept in the same bed. Our bedrooms were 
all on the third floor and the study and recitation 
rooms were on the first and second floors. The 
chapel was on the second floor. The kitchen, 
dining-room and store rooms were on the first 
floor. There was only one building then. 



156 THE TALE OF A PLAIN MAN 

This was divided by a partition, the girls 
occupying the east half and the boys the west 
half of the study and sleeping rooms. Our 
sleeping rooms opened into a large central room 
called the morgue. We had to pass through this 
room to get to our sleeping rooms. There was 
only one door into it from the landing at the 
head of the stairs. Our board was cheap in 
price, quantity and quality. There were a 
number of tables in the dining-room, and each 
boy was seated by a girl to teach him manners. 
Professor Allen allotted the seats. There were 
about ten persons at each table, and we were a 
very happy family. Many friendships formed 
in the dining-room grew into courtships and 
subsequently ripened into marriage. The 
teachers. Professors Allen, Streit, Verrill, Jones, 
Miss Conard, Miss Biggs, and the preceptress, 
Mrs. Petercilia, were all very efficient and kind. 
Mrs. Petercilia was a widow. She had taken 
a degree at a homeopathic college of medicine 
and was our doctor as well as our teacher in 
some branches. She was a short, quick, snappy 
woman, and looked as if it pained her when she 
smiled. She was strong on decorum and pro- 
priety, and a good chaperon from a parental 



HOME AGAIN 157 

view, but unpopular with the girls. She had 
no humor and always wore little corkscrew curls 
on each side of her head and admitted the age 
of thirty. She could not have been more than 
fifty. Probably much nearer that than thirty. 
There were about two hundred students, half 
of whom were girls. Mansfield was a healthy 
place, but there were always some students 
sick. John Angle was very ill with typhoid 
fever. For some time it was thought he would 
not recover. In the early part of the winter 
Jim McKay and I, from eating too many 
buckwheat cakes, our principal bread-food, 
and too much dried applesauce, our principal 
dessert, had an itchy trouble and from home 
experience we thought we recognized it. We 
did not consult Dr. Petercilia. We were both 
allopathists and doubted that homeopathy had 
any remedy for our complaint. Besides, we 
had full faith in an ointment which our mothers 
made out of brimstone, turpentine, red precipi- 
tate, rosin, lard and other things not palatable 
or fragrant. I never knew the pharmacy name 
for it, but it was called at home and in the 
neighborhood where it was popular "Itch Oint- 
ment." It was rubbed pretty fully over the 



158 THE TALE OF A PLAIN MAN 

skin, in a hot room, and would surely rout the 
itch and other members of the family. It was 
all right when two only slept in a room and both 
had it, but if one only had it he had to have a 
room alone. We both wrote home to our 
mothers for some of this ointment. We soon 
got over our scratches and forgot all about the 
ointment. At Christmas Jim's mother sent 
him a box of a number of good things to eat. 
There were a roast turkey, two roast chickens, 
mince pies, pies of several kinds, bread, butter, 
cake and several kinds of jelly in little cups and 
jars with brown paper tied around their tops. 
Our room was popular while this lasted. John 
Angle was slowly getting better, and Mrs. 
Petercilia announced one morning at chapel 
that Mr. Angle was on the road to recovery, 
but was very weak; that if any of the students 
had any little delicacies from home for him, 
they would be acceptable. After chapel was 
over Jim fished out of the box two or three jars 
of jelly and we took them up to Angle. Mrs. 
Petercilia opened the door of his room to our 
quiet knock. There lay poor Angle on his back 
with a face as white as a sheet. He could just 
recognize us by a look. Jim handed Mrs. 



HOME AGAIN 159 

Petercilia the jars. She tore off the paper cover 
of one and put some of the contents on the end 
of a case-knife. Angle opened his mouth and 
she gave it to him. Soon his face showed great 
distress and disgust. Mrs. Petercilia seized 
the jar and said, "What is that?" Jim looked at 
the jar, when he too showed great surprise, 
exclaiming "By thunder, that is my itch oint- 
ment!" She reported us to the faculty, but we 
being guilty of no evil intent, and Angle surviving 
the incident, we were only cautioned to be very 
careful in the future; but for some time after 
that when Mrs. Peterciha saw us her nose 
turned up just a trifle. She had very little to 
say to us and never referred to our visit to her 
patient. She had a right to be disgusted, for 
we were too. The dried-apple dessert came 
every night at dinner about six o'clock. A 
teacher or some trusted monitor of the faculty 
sat at the head of the table. We could say 
nothing, but if looks would have soured apple- 
sauce, there would have been a break in the 
vinegar market. It was talked about in our 
rooms. Something had to be done. It was not 
Professor Allen's fault; the trustees furnished 
the food. They had bought up all of the dried 



160 THE TALE OF A PLAIN MAN 

apples in the vicinity and they had to feed them 
to somebody. The third floor was reached by a 
long, wide stairway, starting just at Professor 
Verrill's door, and he was in charge of the boys, 
who were responsible to him for their conduct. 
There was an outside rail to the stairs. When 
he heard a racket on the third floor he would 
slip his feet into a pair of carpet slippers and 
step softly up-stairs in his nightshirt without any 
light, guiding his steps by his hand on the stair- 
rail. He could be among us before we knew it, 
and some thought it was not fair and that we 
should have some notice of his approach. 
Besides, he was not liked very much. He had 
red hair and was too popular on the other side 
of the building, and he and the applesauce were 
our principal grounds of grievance. It was 
Jim McKay's fertile mind that relieved the 
difficulty. He and several other daring spirits 
went down into the kitchen after midnight. 
They found a tin clothes boiler two-thirds full 
of the applesauce. They quietly brought it 
up-stairs and smeared the stair-rail with it, 
leaving the tin boiler on the stairs about two- 
thirds of the way up. Then they went up to 
the third floor and started a noisy row. Out 



HOME AGAIN 161 

came Verrill and started on his mission of 
investigation. He got up as far as the tin 
boiler when he fell over it and rolled and 
tumbled with it to the foot of the stairs. Hear- 
ing the noise, we ran down to light the lamp and 
help him. He was a pretty sight. His red 
hair, which was thought so pretty by the other 
side of the house, and his whiskers were full of 
applesauce, as was his nightshirt. He had 
fallen on the boiler and flattened it. He was 
not hurt much, but he was mad, and went into 
his room and slammed the door. Outside of 
his room the verdict of satisfaction was unani- 
mous. Verrill was a proud, haughty, high- 
stepper, and we knew there would be a prompt 
investigation. We held a whispered consulta- 
tion in which secrecy and "never tell" were 
pledged. Fortunately, no one but the criminals 
knew who was in it. Next morning at chapel 
after the girls had been dismissed the court- 
martial began. Professor Allen in a grave, 
sad voice, addressed us, and said the outrage to 
Professor Verrill was one that could not be 
overlooked. The perpetrator must be punished. 
He hated to lose Professor Verril, for he was a 
good teacher. He appealed to our patriotism, 



162 THE TALE OF A PLAIN MAN 

our manhood and everything else that he 
thought would influence us, but there was no 
response. He then asked that all who did not 
have a hand in the affair rise. We all stood up. 
He then asked that any one who knew anything 
about it rise. No one got up. We had been 
through this fire drill before. He then turned 
to Professor Verrill, who sat there, his hair and 
eyes snapping with anger. He jumped up and 
said, "Professor Allen has appealed to your 
patriotism and manhood, I will appeal to your 
cupidity. " He took a ten dollar bill out of his 
pocket and said, *'I will give ten dollars to any 
one who will name a person who had a hand in 
this outrage." After a pause Roll Moore 
slowly got up. There were six pairs of eyes 
that looked daggers at him. He was the one 
who smeared the applesauce on the stair-rail. 
He said, "Professor, my mother is a poor 
woman. She works hard to send me to school. 
I have never earned anything to help her. 
Ten dollars would be of great help to her. I 
know who had a hand in this outrage. " " Name 
him," said Verrill. Moore stepped up to the 
platform and Professor Verrill gave him the 
money. "Name him," cried Verrill. "Well," 



HOME AGAIN 163 

says Moore, "from all accounts. Professor, I 
think that you had a hand in it." We were 
hastily dismissed. For several days there were 
frequent secret sessions of the faculty. Then 
one morning Professor Allen said nothing would 
come by publicity. It would probably embar- 
rass Professor Verrill more to have the story 
get out than to have the parties punished, and 
said that if we would promise to say nothing 
about it, the matter would be dropped. We 
all readily promised by a unanimous rising 
vote. Roll Moore kept the money. Verrill 
never asked him to return it. There was 
nothing yellow about Verrill. He just had 
red hair with all its accompaniments. He 
was a good teacher — a very good mathema- 
tician. 

When spring came and the nights were warm 
Professor Verrill would move his bed up to the 
third story and put it in front of the open door 
leading into the morgue. The boys could not 
get under it and could not get over it without 
wakening him. There was a large black cat 
that Professor Verrill fed and protected, and 
because of this she probably needed more 
protection. Jim McKay got four large walnuts 



164 THE TALE OF A PLAIN MAN 

and dug out the meat and shell inside through 
holes in the tops, and with strings fastened 
them on the cat's feet and smuggled her into 
our bedroom. There were no carpets on the 
morgue floor, stairs or halls. About midnight 
he let her go. As usual, she went straight to 
Professor Verrill. Her feet with the dry shells 
on the hard wood floors made as much noise as 
a running horse. She sprang on Professor 
Verrill and he, not knowing what it was, yelled 
out in fright. She sprang on to the floor on the 
other side through the open door and went 
thumping down the stairs. The noise wakened 
all the boys, who started in pursuit of her, 
Verrill and Jim leading the search. They 
chased the noise down the stairs, across the hall, 
down the lower stairs and through the halls. 
She was black and it was dark. They could not 
see her, but the noise and clatter were great. 
After much chasing they caught her, got a light 
and found the walnuts on her feet. The whole 
school was aroused. The girls were peeping 
down the stairs from their side, and it was 
some time before the house was quiet. There 
was much quiet inquiry, but only Jim and I 
knew and we did not tell. The cat never could 



HOME AGAIN 165 

be coaxed into our room again. She would 
always look at her feet and raise her hair when 
she saw Jim. In the next fall term George 
Rexford came to the school. He had lost a leg 
in the army, amputated far above the knee. 
He hobbled around on one crutch, and on the 
bare floors he made a good deal of noise that 
was especially annoying to a nervous man like 
Verrill. Rexford was a good, natural, fun-loving 
soul and it amused him to see Verrill annoyed 
at him. Verrill had married during the vaca- 
tion. His wife was consumptive, and her 
father was rich. One day Rexford lost his 
balance going down the stairs and stumbled and 
rolled, landing on his back in front of Verrill's 
room. Verrill rushed out and seeing Rexford 
there said, "Rexford, what on earth do you 
want?" Rexford grinned and said, "I want to 
marry a rich man's daughter with a bad cough. '* 
Professor Verrill was not influenced to marry 
her by her father's wealth or her cough. They 
became engaged years before when she was well, 
and it was her wish that they should be married. 
She lived only a year or two after their marriage. 
Verrill never got any of her father's wealth, 
never expected nor asked for any of it. He was 



166 THE TALE OF A PLAIN MAN 

hasty and jerky in his manner, impatient with 
students who were indifferent to progress, but 
when he saw a student trying earnestly, he was 
very appreciative and kind. I owe him much 
and thought highly of him. I was glad years 
after that opportunity enabled me to help him 
to a position that relieved him from want and 
made his declining years peaceful and happy. 
At commencement in June, 1868, 1 was one of the 
students selected to deliver an address. I chose 
Thaddeus Stevens for my subject. I admired 
him for the great service that he had rendered 
the country in his support of Lincoln in Congress. 
I do not remember much about the address, 
but I do remember that I was criticised and 
ridiculed by the local Democratic newspapers. 
Probably justly. My public utterances were 
very crude affairs in those days. 



CHAPTER XXX 

Wellsboro 

^ FTER commencement I went to Wellsboro 
/-\ and tried to get a clerkship in the stores 
and groceries there, but I did not succeed. 
I was very tall. The ceilings in the stores were 
not very high, and the merchants hung many 
of their wares on hooks and nails from the 
ceiling. I had to dodge around them and one 
merchant said that if he employed me he would 
have to remove all of these things and he did 
not know where to put them. Others probably 
thought the same. I met Jerome B. Niles, a 
lawyer, whom I knew at Mansfield. He asked 
me what I was going to do. I said I did not 
know. I told him of my efforts to get a clerk- 
ship. He asked me to come into his oflSce and 
study law. He suggested that I apply for the 
Wellsboro Academy, that I could teach during 
the day and study law nights, that Judge 
Wilhams was one of the trustees and that I 
should see him. I saw the Judge and he 
encouraged me to apply. I did so and was given 

(167) 



168 THE TALE OF A PLAIN MAN 

permission by the trustees to teach at the 
Wellsboro Academy. That is, it was turned 
over to me. There had been no school there for 
several years. I paid no rent or royalty. I got 
Miss Delia Rouse to assist me, as she was a very 
capable teacher. We advertised for students, 
and to my surprise when school opened there 
were quite a number of students. I charged a 
moderate tuition. I was my own janitor, and 
swept the rooms and kept the fires. I registered 
as a student-at-law with S. F." Wilson and 
Jerome B. Niles, taught school through the day 
and studied law at night. Most of the students 
were not very far advanced and I found no 
difficulty with them. But there was one, a 
farmer's son, who rode in from the farm on 
horseback, who gave me much trouble. 
Clarence Gorrie was a wonder. He was a natural 
mathematician and studied algebra, geometry 
and trigonometry. He was the only one in his 
class of higher mathematics. I had to study 
his lessons nights to be able to hear him recite. 
He kept me busy, for I had never seen anyone 
Hke him. He had no trouble, but I did. I did 
not wish to show ignorance before him and I 
just had to hustle. All through the fall, winter 



WELLSBORO 169 

and spring terms I studied mathematics harder 
than he did. He never suspected me. He 
should have been the teacher, I the pupil; 
and really that was our position. I expected 
him to become a teacher and fill a chair in some 
college. Years afterward I met him. He was a 
small, plain farmer, happy and contented with his 
hfe. His mathematics evidently did him no good. 
After my experience with him I could better 
appreciate Gray's Elegy of a Country Church 
Yard. With the close of the spring term my 
occupation as a teacher ceased. I may have 
been influenced by the fear that Clarence Gorrie 
would come back to my school. I should have 
been grateful to him, for I learned more mathe- 
matics from him than I had learned from any- 
one, but I was not a teacher. I had become 
interested in the law and found a liking for it. 
Jim McKay came from the West, where he had 
been working in the construction of the Union 
Pacific Railroad, and entered the office as a 
fellow student. He had a wonderful story of 
being captured by the Indians and tied to the 
stake, but before they kindled the fire, he was 
rescued by the chief's daughter, who finally 
aided him to escape. He showed scars which he 



170 THE TALE OF A PLAIN MAN 

claimed were knife cuts made by the Indians. 
He was quite popular with the young people and 
was the same good, fun-loving fellow. The fact 
that I did not believe his stories made no 
difference in our friendship. In the winter of 
1869 and 1870 Wilson and Niles were both 
absent. Wilson in Congress and Niles in the 
Legislature. McKay and I ran the office with 
the help of Gus Streeter from Westfield, who 
came over to look after the practice while Wilson 
and Niles were away. He was a congenial, 
kind-hearted man. His specialty was divorce, 
and he claimed to be quite successful in that 
practice. There were several young men study- 
ing law in Wellsboro, James H. Bosard, Walter 
Sherwood and others. We sometimes tried cases 
before Alex. Brewster, the justice of the peace, 
and other justices in the county. We were not 
admitted to the bar, but no one objected. 
Walter Sherwood and I represented Sam Maine 
in a suit brought by him against Dan Ashley for 
the value of a shoat or pig which Ashley had 
taken up as a stray under an old statute which 
provided that a trespassing pig, whose owner 
was unknown and who had no registered mark 
upon him, could be taken up and penned and. 



WELLSBORO 171 

after several weeks' notice posted on a tree at 
the nearest crossroad, could be butchered and 
retained by the person taking him up. Jim 
Bosard tried the case for Ashley. The suit 
was before Squire Dick Kinney at Kinneysville. 
Ashley knew whose pig it was, but claimed that 
he did not. It developed on the trial that there 
had been difficulty between Maine and Ashley 
before. Bosard relied much on legal authorities 
and had several books with him when the trial 
began. A large number of witnesses were 
subpoenaed upon both sides. The pig was worth 
about three dollars. There were numerous 
arguments on relevancy of testimony during 
the trial. Bosard had the advanatge. We had 
no books. A law book bound in leather has 
much influence before a justice of the peace, 
whether the case recited has any relevancy to 
the matter in dispute or not. The squire was 
very dignified and talked in grave, formal tones 
which seemed to impress the audience. After 
we had examined about a dozen witnesses, mostly 
as to the value of the pig, Bosard opened his 
defense and called fourteen witnesses, or two 
more than we had called. I noticed that the 
squire wrote down on a piece of foolscap paper 



172 THE TALE OF A PLAIN MAN 

the name of each witness as he was sworn, and 
after he left the stand he would seem to reflect 
and then make some marks. Passing behind 
him and glancing over his shoulder, I saw that 
he had crossed out each name but two of the 
defendant's witnesses. We called three more 
witnesses in rebuttal and won the case. The 
squire said that the weight of testimony was 
with the plaintiff. After the trial I said to the 
squire that his plan of cancellation to determine 
the weight of testimony was a good one. He 
said he found it so. We won the case by a 
majority of one. After that I lost no cases 
before Squire Kinney. We did not get much for 
our services, which was the principal reason why 
we were employed. We were pettifoggers, but 
there were others who had not studied law. 
Michael McMahon was quite noted. Some- 
times we tried cases before arbitrators. Either 
party could take a rule upon the other to 
arbitrate the case. At the return of the rule 
each party would select a man and these would 
select a third. We had such a case at the 
Blockhouse, a Dutch village some twenty miles 
from Wellsboro. The plaintiff claimed one 
hundred and fifty dollars for a horse sold the 



WELLSBORO 173 

defendant. The defendant claimed that the 
price was one hundred dollars; after much 
testimony and more argument the arbitrators 
retired. Two of them had been on the jury at 
the county seat. After being out a long time 
the arbitrators filed into the room where all the 
men and boys in the village had been impatiently 
waiting for them. They seemed in a bewildered 
and dejected state and looked as if something 
serious had happened to them. They handed 
the award to the defendant's attorney. It 
was thirty -one dollars and twenty -five cents 
for the plaintiff. Every one was surprised. 
The plaintiff asked his arbitrator how they 
came to find such an award. He said, "That 
beats me. We figured it and figured it, and 
it came out that way every time." "But 
how did you figure it?" asked the plaintiff. 
"Why, we all marked and added it up and 
divided it by twelve, just as they always 
do. I've been on the jury. I marked one 
hundred and fifty. The defendant's man 
marked one hundred. The third man split the 
difference and marked one hundred and twenty- 
five, and we added these three sums up and 
divided the result by twelve. Figure it for 



174 THE TALE OF A PLAIN MAN 

yourself. If it doesn't come out thirty-one 
dollars and twenty-five cents I'll eat my hat. 
We knew there was something wrong with it, 
but danged if we could tell what." 

The winters were long and the weather very 
cold in Wellsboro, much more so than in other 
parts of the state, probably to obhge the people 
who mostly came from states farther north. 
There was no railroad to the town. A stage 
coach brought the news once a day from Tioga, 
seventeen miles away. There were no traveling 
shows or minstrels, and we had to depend on 
home talent for entertainment. A lawsuit was 
generally tried at night before Squire Brewster, 
so that all who desired could attend. The 
audience was always large. For weeks farmers 
had missed pork, hams, chickens, turkeys and 
grain in Middlebury Township. Suspicion 
settled on Cal Cady and his son-in-law, John 
Johnson. They did not work and had no visible 
means of support. They were arrested on 
general suspicion and I defended them. Bosard 
was attorney for the prosecution. Walter 
Sherwood helped me, as we generally worked 
together in law as well as politics. He was a 
Democrat, I a Republican. We helped each 



WELLSBORO 175 

other. There was a good audience before 
Squire Brewster when the ease of Commonwealth 
vs. Cady and Johnson was called. A search of 
their house revealed nothing. The neighbors 
proved their losses, but there was no evidence 
connecting the defendants with them. One 
neighbor had lost a brass kettle. It was found 
in a neighboring barnyard covered with loose 
hay. There was much curiosity as to how the 
kettle got there. It was discussed by the 
attorneys upon both sides. There were crude 
notions of law among the people called curb- 
stone law. They understood that a man could 
not be put in jeopardy twice for the same 
offense. Johnson was rather proud of his 
dexterity in aiding the missing things to dis- 
appear. The squire discharged the defendants. 
Johnson thought he had been once in jeopardy 
and was immune from further arrest. He stood 
up and said, "Now, if you want to know how 
that brass kettle got there I can tell you." 
That remark cost the defendants and their 
friends two hundred and fifty dollars. They 
were rearrested and had to pay for everything 
missed in the neighborhood at prices estimated 
by the owners. 



176 THE TALE OF A PLAIN MAN 

We had a literary society or debating club 
called the Hermaic Society. Hugh Young was 
president of it. Major Merrick had become a 
lawyer, and he, Walter Sherwood, James H. 
Bosard, Charles Peck, E. B. Young, Jim McKay, 
myself and others were members. We debated 
many important questions of public interest 
in the courthouse. The audience would decide 
on the best arguments made. We would choose 
sides. The president would select the chiefs, 
one to uphold the affirmative and one the 
negative. Then each chief would alternately 
select a debater until our members were all 
chosen. The town was deeply interested in 
woman suffrage. Mrs. Woodhull and Olive 
Logan had both lectured in Wellsboro on the 
question. The women were aroused and mani- 
fested as much interest and zeal then as they 
do now. The men were as indifferent to the 
question then as they are now. The Hermaic 
Society decided to settle the question in a public 
debate at the courthouse on a Saturday evening. 
Major Merrick was chief for the affirmative of 
the resolution, "Resolved, That women should 
have the legal right to vote." I was chief for 
the negative. After the debates were over the 



WELLSBORO 177 

women were to decide by a rising vote which 
side had the weight of the argument. It looked 
pretty blue for my side, but then, as now, the 
claims for woman suffrage were presented by a 
very few women and I had hopes that when it 
came to a vote there might not be a majority 
for it. The courthouse was filled with men and 
women. Hugh Young presided. Merrick led 
off with a strong plea for suffrage. He closed 
amid great applause from the women. I 
followed, but I observed that nearly all of my 
applause came from the men. Then Merrick 
called one of his side, then I called one of mine. 
My debaters did not speak as vigorously as 
they did at our room. They got no applause 
from the women and very little from the men, 
whose applause subsided when they saw that 
the women only applauded Merrick's speakers. 
When our debaters were all through Merrick 
called Squire Emery, not a member, to speak 
for the resolution. I thought my case was lost. 
I could see no one whom I thought would speak 
for my side. No one volunteered in response 
to my request. Finally, I saw Steve Wilson 
on the back seat. Congress had adjourned. 
I did not know what his views on the question 



178 THE TALE OF A PLAIN MAN 

were, but I thought that because I was a student 
in his office he might help me out. The ground 
was sHpping from under me. The women were 
laughing at my plight and in desperation I 
called the Hon. S. F. Wilson. The women 
laughed and applauded. Wilson was a bachelor. 
He got up and slowly said: "I did not expect 
to be called to speak on this question. I don't 
know whether I am for it or against it. I never 
could see any reason why a good woman 
should not have the right to vote if she wants 
to, and I never could see any reason why a 
gander should not set on eggs if he wants to. 
I have never seen a gander set and I never 
expect to see a woman vote." The women 
were angry. The applause was loud from the 
men. I called the question, but the women were 
so mad that not one of them would vote and the 
audience was dismissed. There were geese in 
town and every one knew their habits. After 
that the women did not speak so loud nor so 
often for suffrage, and before summer came the 
agitation was over. Wilson's brief speech 
suppressed woman suffrage in Wellsboro as 
quickly and effectively as the European war 
suppressed it in England. 



WELLSBORO 179 

I do not intend to say much about other 
people except where they have come into my 
life, but I cannot refrain from speaking briefly 
of Stephen F. Wilson. He was probably the 
finest specimen of physical manhood that I 
have ever seen. He was just the right height 
and weight and had a manly, firm face, full of 
love and sympathy for everybody. He was 
absolutely honest and true to friendship, despised 
deceit and crooked ways. He had a charm that 
won everybody. He drank to excess and was 
frequently seen on the streets intoxicated. 
Tioga County was strong for temperance. There 
were good templars societies in all the towns, 
but for m.any years whenever he wanted the 
votes of Tioga County he could always get a 
majority of them. The people spoke of his 
habit in sympathy and sorrow, never in anger. 
Financially broke nearly all of the time, he yet 
had the confidence and love of the people of 
Tioga County beyond that of any other man. 
He blundered into a great temperance meeting 
on the green in a large tent one night without 
knowing just where he was, for he was pretty 
drunk. When the audience saw him they began 
to cheer and call upon him for a speech. Some 



180 THE TALE OF A PLAIN MAN 

thought he had come there to sign the pledge. 
He began to realize where he was, and in 
response to the continued calls of the audience, 
said, "Mr. Chairman, I do not know why I am 
here, nor how I got here. I was on my way to 
Watkins' saloon, but I observe that this is a 
temperance meeting and I am in full sympathy 
with it. I am a temperance man drunk or sober. " 
That illustrates Wilson. No matter what his 
environment or the conditions surrounding him, 
he would always ring true to his conscience and 
judgment. He was afterwards elected judge 
and when he was able to officiate he was a 
splendid judge. After setting aside a verdict in 
ejectment once, he remarked, "It takes thirteen 
men in this court to steal a man's farm. The 
plaintiff only has twelve." 

There were temperance meetings, temperance 
lodges and societies and temperance orators in 
those days. Temperance waves would sweep 
over the county and for a time would absorb 
much attention. Then it was in order to join 
temperance societies and sign a pledge to stop 
drinking. The lawyers signed the pledge. 
They would be held up as bad examples if they 
did not. A temperance revival swept over 



WELLSBORO 181 

Tioga county in 1871. Julius Sherwood signed 
the pledge and he was joyfully welcomed as a 
brand plucked from the burning. He was 
invited to deliver an oration at a great temper- 
ance mass meeting and picnic at Blackwell's 
Grove, a few miles from Wellsboro, on the fourth 
of July. He was a very fine orator, but very 
intemperate and could not get through a speech 
without a drink. He usually would become ill 
during his speech and retire to an anteroom 
and get a drink from a flask in his pocket. 
The oration was to be delivered in the grove and 
there was no way for him to get a drink without 
being seen. He was much troubled about it, 
and various plans were discussed between him 
and Steve Wilson. They finally hit upon a 
plan. They got a glass pitcher half full of gin, 
put some pieces of ice in it and Julius would 
occasionally take a drink of it. The people did 
not know much about gin. Their principal 
drink was red eye. The gin looked like water 
and it had no odor. There was a great audience. 
The day was warm and fine. Julius was making 
a great speech. He painted in glowing words 
the despair and misery of a drunkard and the 
suffering of his family. Enoch Blackwell, a 



182 THE TALE OF A PLAIN MAN 

good man living in the vicinity, about sixty-five 
years old, presided over the meeting. He sat 
in a chair before the table on which stood the 
pitcher of gin and a large kitchen tumbler 
quite full. Enoch was the pillar of the school- 
house church. He had never tasted liquor of 
any kind. He got thirsty and while Jule was 
thundering at the left wing of his audience 
Enoch raised the glass of gin to his lips and 
gulped down about half of it and immediately 
proceeded to have all kinds of fits. He fell out 
of his chair, strangled and choked. A man tried 
to unfasten his collar and as he began to revive, 
a good motherly soul grabbed the pitcher of 
gin and poured its contents into his face, which 
threw him into greater spasms. Another woman 
drenched him with a pail of water. The local 
doctor felt Enoch's pulse, rolled up his sleeve 
and bled him. The meeting broke up. Enoch 
came to and walked away on the arm of his 
wife, but neither he nor any one else in the 
neighborhood ever knew what ailed him. It 
was always supposed that he had a stroke. 

I have heard John B. Gough, Francis Murphy 
and others. They were eloquent and their 
appeals for sobrietj'^ were masterly. But the 



WELLSBORO 183 

greatest and best of all appeals to temperance 
was that of Judge Alfred W. Arrington of 
Ottawa, Illinois, who before he became a lawyer 
was a Methodist preacher. He was announced 
to preach at a famous spring where plenty of 
good liquor was promised to all who would 
attend. During the sermon a desperado 
demanded, "Where is the liquor you promised?" 
"There," thundered Arrington, pointing to a 
spring gushing up in two strong columns from 
the bosom of the earth with a sound like a shout 
of joy, "There, there is the liquor which God, 
the Eternal, brews for all of his children. Not 
in the simmering still over the smoky fires, 
choked with poisonous gases, surrounded with 
stench of sickening odors and corruptions, doth 
your Father in Heaven prepare the precious 
essence of life — pure, cold water — but in the 
green glade and grassy dell, where the red deer 
wanders and the child loves to play. There 
God brews it; and down, low down in the deepest 
valleys, where the fountains murmur, and the 
rills sigh; and high upon the mountain tops, 
where the naked granite glitters like gold in the 
sun, where the storm cloud broods and the 
thunder storms crash; and far out on the wide. 



184 THE TALE OF A PLAIN MAN 

wild sea, where the hurricane howls music and 
the big waves roll the chorus, sweeping the 
march of God — there he brews it, the beverage 
of life, health-giving water. And everywhere 
it is a thing of life and beauty — gleaming in the 
dew drop ; singing in the summer rain ; shining 
in the icy gem till the trees all seem turned to 
living jewels; spreading a golden veil over the 
sun or a white gauze around the midnight moon; 
sporting in the glacier; folding its bright snow 
curtain softly about the wintry world; and 
weaving the many-colored bow whose warp is 
the raindrops of earth, whose woof is the 
sunbeam of Heaven, all checkered over with the 
mystic hand of refraction — still it is beautiful, 
that blessed life water! No poisonous bubbles 
are on its brink; its foam brings not murder and 
madness; no blood stains its liquid glass; pale 
widows and starving orphans weep not burning 
tears into its depths; no drunkards — shrieking 
ghost from the grave curses it in a world of 
eternal despair. Beautiful, pure, blessed and 
glorious. Speak out, my friend, would you 
exchange it for the demon's drink, alcohol.^^" 

One deeply interesting character in Wells- 
boro was Uncle Fred Bunnell. He was liable 



WELLSBORO 185 

to startle his hearers with apt and unexpected 
remarks. Before the Franco-German war it 
was customary in England for young men to 
pattern after the Prince of Wales, also for young 
men in France to pattern after Napoleon. 
They wore their beards like them, dressed like 
them and aped their mannerisms, and not 
infrequently resembled them and were sometimes 
taken for them on the streets. Uncle Fred was 
traveling from New York to Buffalo. In the 
smoking room of the parlor car with him was 
a young Frenchman and a young Englishman. 
They were in turn relating occasions when they 
were embarrassed by being taken for their 
patrons. The Frenchman related several occa- 
sions when he was taken for Napoleon and the 
Englishman related occasions when he was 
taken for the Prince of Wales. They were 
proud of it. They ran out of talk after a while 
and one of them turned to Uncle Fred and 
asked if he was ever taken for the President. 
Uncle Fred said no, he was never taken for the 
President, or General Grant, but a few years 
ago he was traveling in Arizona. The train 
stopped at a little town for some minutes. He 
got out on the platform to stretch his legs, 



186 THE TALE OF A PLAIN MAN 

when up rushed a chap he had known in Wells- 
boro, slapped him on the back and said, " Great 
God! is that you?" 

While at Mansfield I became acquainted with 
Ellen Stevens, a student there. Her father was 
a farmer in Middlebury Township on the toll 
plankroad from Wellsboro to Tioga village, 
seventeen miles from Wellsboro. We became 
engaged to be married. On the fourth of July, 
1870, I hired an old worthless mare from Bob 
Ketcham, the liveryman, with a wagon and 
harness no better than the mare, and went down 
to Mrs. Stevens' to spend the fourth with 
Ellen. I got this rig for nothing. No one else 
would have it, and while I did, it saved her 
board. Ellen was a sensible girl. It was me 
she wanted to see, not the mare, and as I drove 
down at night when the crows were all at roost 
it did not matter. There were to be fireworks at 
Wellsboro. I had contributed towards it and 
as I was starting away the boys put some of the 
fireworks in the box under the wagon seat. 
There were Roman candles, skyrockets, pin- 
wheels, etc. I knew about them, but I forgot 
all about them until I had gone part way home. 
I had had great difficulty in urging the mare to 



WELLSBORO 187 

travel faster than a walk. It was a beautiful 
moonlight night. I had matches, and taking out 
the fireworks I began to set them off. The old 
mare went to sleep, so I did not tie her. She 
always seconded the motion to stop, and was 
not afraid of anything. It was about two 
o'clock in the morning. I lighted a skyrocket, 
instead of going up in the air as it was supposed 
to do, it took a meadow snipe course and shied 
under the old mare and exploded there. The 
mare started, I had never known her to refuse 
to stop instantly at the word "Whoa!" but she 
refused this time. On she went. I chased her, 
calling "Whoa!" but she would not stop. 
She was outrunning me. It was ten miles to 
Wellsboro. I could never get up to her. I 
hoped old Hall, who kept the tollgate, would 
hear her and let down the gate. He always 
heard us while I was in the wagon, but he did 
not that night, and I never caught up to the 
beast until she stopped in front of the livery 
stable in Wellsboro. 



CHAPTER XXXI 

Admitted to the Bar and Married 

WHEN the September court came in 
1870 I applied for admission to the 
bar. The court appointed a com- 
mittee to examine me. We met about ten 
o'clock and my examination did not seem 
satisfactory to the committee. When we 
adjourned at luncheon one of them remarked 
that I did not seem to understand the rules. 
I asked him what rules. He said that I had 
better ask one recently admitted, and I did so. 
When we met in the afternoon, they found that 
I had complied with the rules. There were 
whiskey and cigars, and when we adjourned I 
wrote my own certificate and guided the pen 
of one of them while he signed it. I was found 
fit to practice law by a unanimous vote, and was 
admitted and took the oath. Ellen Stevens 
and I were married soon after my admission to 
the bar and we began housekeeping in Wellsboro. 
There was more litigation in Tioga County 
then than there is now, but there was very little 

(188) 



ADMITTED TO THE BAR 189 

business for young lawyers. I kept a cow and 
had a garden, and my wife did most of the work 
in the house. I milked the cow, split the wood 
and worked the garden. In 1871 the rail- 
road was completed to Wellsboro. This had 
been an event long looked for. Uncle Fred 
Bunnel had declared that the railroad would 
make Wellsboro a seaport town and many 
believed it. It was decided that the event 
should be properly celebrated. The principal 
promoters and owners of the road were the 
Magee family of New York. A day was set 
and great preparations made. Governor Horatio 
Seymour of New York was to deliver the 
address. Subscriptions were made for a dinner 
and necessary expenses, and for the first time 
at a public dinner in Wellsboro, champagne was 
to be served. Every one in the county was 
invited, and many people came. The band 
had practiced for two weeks. General George 
Magee, president of the road, was the hero of 
the day, and the band was to play "Hail to the 
Chief" for him. A platform some twenty feet 
square was erected near the station, with seats 
for the speakers and invited guests. The 
sheriff, Ed. Fish, was the marshal, with some 



190 THE TALE OF A PLAIN MAN 

dozen aides. I was an aide. We had large? 
wide, red sashes over our shoulders. When 
the train came in there was great applause. 
The platform was occupied and the marshal 
ordered me to clear it, but I had some trouble. 
I explained that it was for the speakers and 
invited guests. I got them all off but one old 
man with a cane, who refused to go; said he 
was an invited guest and he could speak, too. 
Seeing the procession coming, I wasted no more 
words, but seized the old fellow, wrenched the 
cane from him, threw it off the platform and 
shoved him after it. He swore at me, but his 
noise was drowned by the band. The speeches 
were good. The singing by the girls dressed 
to represent the different states was very good, 
for they had been well drilled by Dr. Webb. 
Then we adjourned to the Cone House, now the 
Coles House, where an excellent dinner was 
served, with champagne. Many men at that 
dinner had never tasted it before. I had often 
heard my wife talk of Uncle Jason Smith, a 
well-to-do farmer living over on the eastern 
border of the county. He was a widower, had 
no children or nephews, and my wife was his 
favorite niece. There was talk about his 



ADMITTED TO THE BAR 191 

willing the farm to her. He was said to be 
eccentric and peculiar, but he was fond of my 
wife and we could overlook his peculiarities. 
I had never seen him. When the dinner was 
over I went up to the house. There was a 
stranger there. My wife introduced him as 
Uncle Jason. He was the old man I had 
shoved off the platform. I bolted out of the 
house and did not come back until he had gone. 
He had been telling her of the scoundrel who 
had misused him and my wife had heartily 
sympathized with him. We did not get the 
farm, and I never saw or heard of Uncle Jason 
after that. 

There were four counties in our judicial 
district or circuit: Tioga, Potter, McKean and 
Elk. There were two judges: H. W. Williams 
and R. G. White, both residing in Wellsboro. 
They would hold court at the county seats in 
the different counties at fixed term days. They 
were both good judges. They were paid 
sixteen hundred dollars each annually. Several 
of the older lawyers would usually accompany 
the judge whose turn it was to hold the court in 
the other counties. The roads were poor. 
There were no railroads and they always went 



192 THE TALE OF A PLAIN MAN 

on horseback. It was called riding the circuit. 
One June term, for some reason, neither White 
nor Williams could hold the court in Potter 
County and Judge Galbraith was invited to 
hold the court. Coudersport, the county seat 
of Potter County, was about fifty miles from 
Wellsboro. The day before the court was to 
begin Steve Wilson, Jule Sherwood, Mort Elliott, 
Major Merrick and James Lowrey started out 
early for Coudersport on horseback. They had 
with them Abel Strait, a witness in a case in 
Coudersport. Abel Strait was a tall, straight 
man about sixty — smooth-faced and very dig- 
nified in appearance. He looked every bit the 
bishop or judge. He did odd jobs about town, 
but on this occasion he was well dressed as 
became an important witness in an important 
case. About half way between Wellsboro and 
Coudersport was the half-way house kept by a 
widow named Taggert. She was a tall, strong, 
dark woman about fifty and w^as known far and 
near as Aunt Cene Taggert. She kept a 
respectable house, but sold liquor when she 
could get a license from the court and some- 
times a httle on the sly when she had no license. 
She was pretty safe to bring down a deer at one 



ADMITTED TO THE BAR 193 

hundred yards with her rifle at the shoulder. 
She was Hked and respected and the judges and 
lawyers going between Wellsboro and Couders- 
port always stayed over flight at her hotel. 
The refreshments of our travelers were exhausted 
long before they reached Aunt Gene's and they 
realized that they would not be welcome. 
Certain unsettled scores against Wilson and 
Sherwood would not add to their welcome, and, 
besides, Aunt Cene was a little pecuhar and 
eccentric. She had seen too many inebriated 
lawyers to fill her with proper respect for the 
profession. They rode in silence for some 
time, when Steve Wilson announced that they 
would pass Abel Strait off on Aunt Cene as 
Judge Galbraith. She was applying for a 
license that term of court and had never seen 
Abel Strait or Judge Galbraith. He promised 
that he would not talk and they could trust 
him if he did not get a drink. If their scheme 
worked they knew they would get a good dinner 
and she would not mention their accounts. 
They rode up to the hotel with formality and 
dignity and got down slowly. Aunt Cene stood 
in the open door with her arms akimbo and did 
not return their bows and greetings. She 



194 THE TALE OF A PLAIN MAN 

looked a little surprised, probably because they 
all appeared to be sober. Then Wilson led Abel 
up and with much deference introduced him as 
Judge Galbraith. Listantly, Aunt Gene's ice 
melted. She welcomed them heartily. She 
took the judge into the best room and seated 
him in the best chair. She started a couple of 
boys off fishing and made hvely preparations 
for a good dinner. The dinner was good, the 
trout crisp, the venison tender and her famous 
warm biscuits were never better. She was very 
gracious to the judge, who said very little as 
instructed. After dinner they all sat in the 
living room and listened to Wilson's stories. 
He was the best teller of stories that ever lived 
in that country. Aunt Cene watched her 
opportunity and motioned to the judge. He 
followed her into the pantry, where she showed 
him a secreted quart bottle of mountain dew, 
telling him to help himself whenever he wished 
to, but under no circumstances to tell the rest. 
He faithfully observed her instructions and 
after the second trip to the pantry he began to 
manifest a desire to talk. Wilson admonished 
him with his boot, but after the third trip to the 
pantry the judge, pointing to an apple tree 



ADMITTED TO THE BAR 195 

plainly seen in the moonlight through the 
uncurtained window, said, "Right out thar 
under that ar apple tree Ole Roarabacher gin 
me twenty -five cents onst for skinnin' a dog." 
Aunt Cene sprang up, saying, "You are no 
judge. No judge ever skinned a dog and no 
man could ever be a judge that would skin a 
dog." The cyclone had struck, but fortunately 
the lawyers through forced temperance had 
reached a normal condition and were able to 
partially persuade Aunt Cene that they had a 
bet that they could fool her and that Steve 
Wilson had lost. They were permitted to stay 
all night. They got no trout nor biscuits for 
breakfast. The lawyers had beds, but Judge 
Galbraith slept on the floor. 

Wellsboro had many strange characters who 
seemed to glory in the fact that they were queer. 
Old Allen Daggett was a forty-niner who had 
crossed the plains in 1849 during the gold craze 
and had seen many hardships. He had been a 
candidate for sheriff of Tioga County several 
times. In 1871 he was again a candidate for 
sheriff at the Republican primaries. He called 
on me. We had not previously met. He was a 
tall, lean man, all bone and muscle, and wore a 



196 THE TALE OF A PLAIN MAN 

long linen duster, a wide-brimmed straw hat, a 
pair of long-legged boots with his trousers tucked 
in them. He talked to me about the sheriff's 
campaign. I said, "There is no use; my sym- 
pathy is with the forty-niner. " He said, "That's 
me." He was satisfied. His opponent was Ed. 
Fish. He belonged to the Methodist Church, the 
Masons, the Odd Fellows, and the Sons of Tem- 
perance. Allen Daggett had not joined any of 
these societies. He was a forty-niner and, while 
he was the only forty-niner in the county, it made 
no difference. A forty-niner was a forty-niner. 
We had the Crawford County system. Each 
voter voted at the primaries for the candidate he 
preferred. The election officers simply counted 
and certified the votes that each candidate got. 
The candidate receiving the largest vote was 
declared nominated by the convention. A few 
days before election Hi. Hastings, Fred. Wright, 
John Bailey, Will. Kress, Kim McKay, Allen 
Daggett and I were in Ed. Brewster's meat shop. 
The Republican vote of the county was about 
three thousand. Wright asked Daggett of his 
prospects. He said he was sure to be nominated. 
He said he had over two thousand pledges. 
Wright, who was a Democrat, said, "Allen, I 



ADMITTED TO THE BAR 197 

will bet you ten dollars that you don't get two 
hundred votes." Allen had conducted a very 
economical campaign. He had cozened and 
visited over the county. His total outlay was 
about ten dollars, and he thought he would surely 
get more than two hundred votes and get his 
ten dollars back. He drew out a tin tobacco 
box and raised the lid. There was a yellow 
piece of plug tobacco and a ten-dollar bill in it 
about as yellow as the tobacco. He said, "I will 
take that bet." Wright produced ten dollars 
and Ed. Brewster took the money as stakeholder. 
Election passed and Allen Daggett got about 
one hundred and fifty votes. Fish got the rest. 
After it was all over we gathered in Ed. Brew- 
ster's butcher shop. Daggett was there. Brew- 
ster said Wright had won the bet and he was 
ready to pay the stakes over to him. Daggett 
got up slowly from the meat block where he sat. 
He said, *' Yes, I have lost the bet. I reckon 
Brewster must pay the money over to Wright. 
I am disappointed. There were only about 
three thousand votes polled. I had two 
thousand pledges. Well, boys, I may never run 
for sheriff again, but I may, and if I do I will 
win. I will join the Methodist Church, I will 



198 THE TALE OF A PLAIN MAN 

join the Masons, I will join the Odd Fellows, 
I will join the Sons of Temperance, and I will 
join the Sons of Bitches. That is what 
nominated Fish." 

Politics interested all of the younger lawyers 
at the bar. Henry M. Foote had become a 
lawyer, and John W. Mathers, Horace Packer 
and others were lawyers. Henry W. Williams was 
the judge, John I. Mitchell, M. F. Elliott, David 
Cameron, Henry Sherwood, William Smith, Cap- 
tain John Sh aw and others were lawyers . General 
R. C. Cox was appointed General of the Thir- 
teenth Division of the National Guard and I was 
appointed adjutant-general with the rank of 
lieutenant-colonel. I never got a uniform, but 
did get the name of colonel, which has clung to 
me ever since. General Cox attained the 
highest rank of any man from Tioga County in 
the Civil War. His son Henry and I were great 
friends. John H. Shearer, Henry Cox and I 
often fished together. We knew every trout 
stream in the county. They were splendid fly 
fisherman, and Henry and I fished together 
every season until he died in 1915. Shearer 
died long before that. The Odd Fellows' lodge 
to which Jim Bosard, Hugh Young, Walter 



ADMITTED TO THE BAR 199 

Sherwood and many others belonged was a kind 
of social club, and we had much fun with Johji 
Wortendyke and Moses Yale and Chandler, 
who took the order seriously. Colonel Gregg of 
Centre County came to Wellsboro and spent a 
year there. He had been colonel of the Forty- 
fifth Pennsylvania Volunteers, in which regiment 
were a good many Tioga County men. The 
colonel was very popular and was invited to 
deliver addresses in many places in the county. 
It pleased him. He was a rabid Republican, 
and very profane. He was very sincere and 
could not bear the interruptions of Democrats 
in his meetings. He was to dehver an address 
at Mainsburg, near Mansfield, on the fourth 
of July. He prepared it with great care. He 
had much in it about General Jackson and the 
Battle of New Orleans. In the midst of his 
work he hurriedly put on his coat and went 
down town to see Hugh Young, who was an 
authority on history and general literature. 
Hugh kept the bookstore, was a justice of the 
peace and postmaster. He asked Hugh how old 
General Jackson was when he fought the Battle 
of New Orleans. Hugh said he did not know. 
He would look it up, but he asked the colonel 



200 THE TALE OF A PLAIN MAN 

why he wished to know. "Why," said the 
colonel, "I am to deliver the oration at Mains- 
burg on the fourth and I have a good deal to say 
about General Jackson and the Battle of New 
Orleans. " "But why do you wish to know how 
old he was when the battle was fought?" asked 
Hugh. "Suppose, said the colonel, some d — ^n 
Democrat should get up and ask me that 
question. I want to be prepared to answer 
him." 

Pat Donahue lived next door to Jim Bosard. 
Pat's house was set on the rear end of his lot. 
Jim was constructing a chicken coop on the 
rear end of his lot and Pat thought it would 
shut off the light to his house. He could not 
get Jim to change his plan and went from one 
lawyer to another to get them to file a bill 
against Bosard. None of them liked to take a 
case against a fellow attorney and Pat could not 
get any one to take his case. When the last 
lawyer refused Pat's patience was exhausted. 
'*You're a d — n pretty set. You won't take a 
case against your own sex. " He hurried home. 
Jim was at work at his chicken coop. Pat 
pulled off his coat and there was a fight. When 
Jim got around again he was persuaded by the 



ADMITTED TO THE BAR 201 

other lawyers not to prosecute Pat for assault 
and battery. They all felt a little ashamed of 
it, for Pat should have had his opportunity in 
court. There was very little sympathy for 
Bosard, who had told Pat that he could not 
get a lawyer to take a case against him. Jim 
was pretty badly battered up and his face was 
ornamented with court plaster for a time, but 
no bones were broken and he soon got over it, 
but the chicken coop was abandoned. 

In the Legislature of 1872 I was appointed 
transcribing clerk by John I. Mitchell, who had 
been elected a member. I passed the winter in 
Harrisburg very pleasantly. I roomed with 
Mitchell. He became a recognized leader and 
was afterwards congressman. United States 
senator, and judge of Tioga County and judge of 
the Superior Court of the state. I learned some 
politics there. Simon Cameron was in the 
United States Senate and Robert W. Mackey and 
M. S. Quay were his recognized lieutenants. 
Reciprocity was recognized and men who ceased 
to be able to deliver delegates were rewarded 
for what they had done. Now rewards are 
rarely given except for what you are expected 
to do. Men were loyal and true to Cameron, 



202 THE TALE OF A PLAIN MAN 

who never broke a promise and always took care 
of his friends. He was loved and respected by 
the great majority of the people in the state. 
When the legislature adjourned I went back to 
Wellsboro. 



CHAPTER XXXII 

Wilson's Campaign for Judge 

I THINK it was in 1873 that S. F. Wilson 
became a candidate for additional law 
judge for our district, composed of Tioga, 
Potter, Elk and McKean counties. I was much 
interested for Wilson and went with him over 
the county. F. E. Smith was his opponent. 
We were going down Breed's Hill near the block- 
house in a single-seated covered buggy with two 
horses. The top set well forward. You had to let 
it down or climb out over the wheel to get out. 
I was driving and the hill was long and steep. 
The neck yoke broke and let the buggy on to the 
horses and we had a runaway. On one side of 
the road was a deep gutter and the buggy was 
sometimes in the gutter and sometimes shoving 
the horses, who were running their best. We 
finally landed at the foot of the hill in a crash, 
the horses getting loose. Wilson was very pale 
and groaning. Some men mowing nearby came 
running and lifted the buggy oft" of us. I was 
not much hurt, but Wilson was badly injured. 

(203) 



204 THE TALE OF A PLAIN MAN 

His thigh was broken. A boy was hurriedly 
sent for the nearest doctor, and they carried 
Wilson into a house nearby. None of the people 
could speak English. It was a Dutch settle- 
ment. Soon Dr. Wentz came galloping over 
the hill on a large horse, his saddle bags swinging 
under him. He hauled up and got down and 
carried his saddle bags into the room where 
Wilson lay on a rough couch. Dr. Wentz was 
a tall man, old and nervous. He straightened 
Wilson's legs out on the couch and pressed on 
both feet to see which limb was broken. Wilson 
threatened to kill him if that was repeated. He 
passed a very bad night and at times I thought 
he would die, but in the morning he was better, 
and we got a doctor from the blockhouse. This 
was Friday and the primaries were a week from 
Saturday. Wilson had hardly any money and 
could not get out until long after the election. 
The rumor spread that he was drunk when the 
runaway occurred. I saw that he was com- 
fortable, extorted a promise from him not to 
withdraw or make any public statement and 
started for Wellsboro to carry on his campaign. 
He said it was no use, but I had hopes. With 
what money I had and what I could borrow I 



WILSON'S CAMPAIGN 205 

got together four hundred dollars. I got three 
good men and had the money changed into one- 
and two-dollar bills. One man took a hundred 
dollars over to the Cowanesky River, another 
took the same amount into the Tioga Valley, 
the third went into the mines about Blossburg. 
Walter Sherwood and I took Wellsboro and the 
two large townships of Delmar and Charleston. 
In previous campaigns there had been very 
Httle money used. My plan was simply to hire 
farmers in each neighborhood to bring Wilson 
men to the polls with their teams. The most 
of them would come any way and a dollar or 
two for the team looked big to them. I never 
put in a busier week and Wilson's friends were 
at work in Wellsboro. There were about three 
thousand votes polled in the county and in 
Delmar, Charleston and Wellsboro we gave 
Wilson nearly a thousand votes. There were 
never so many teams seen at the election before. 
The vote was very close and Wilson won by a 
majority of eleven votes. The Smith men 
claimed fraud, the polling of Democratic votes, 
and several other things. A committee of 
investigation was appointed and I was a member 
of that committee, but it never made any report. 



206 THE TALE OF A PLAIN MAN 

Wilson's name went on the ticket. He was 
elected, but he did not get out of the little 
Dutch house for two or tlu-ee months and was 
lame and walked with a cane ever after his 
accident. Smith never forgave me, but I did not 
care. It was generally said that Wilson owed his 
nomination to me, but I did not think so entirely. 
He was very popular and his friends stood 
manfully by him. I went to see Tom Jones, a 
farmer living on the ridge, to get him to take 
his team to election. He had four sons, all 
voters. He was strong for temperance and 
would not listen to Wilson talk. I talked to one 
of his neighbors about it, and he said Jones was 
opposed to lawyers generally, because some 
years before he had signed a contract to become 
agent for the sale of fanning mills, and after- 
wards the contract had been cut in two and sent 
to a bank, it being a promissory note to which 
there was no defense. I asked the name of the 
lawyer who represented the bank. He did not 
know, but the bank was in Tioga. I knew there 
was but one bank in Tioga and Smith was its 
attorney, a director and stockholder. I went 
back to Jones. I asked him about the fanning 
mill case and he became very angry and said he 



WILSON'S CAMPAIGN 207 

was sorry that he had to vote for a lawyer for 
judge. I asked him if he had any papers in the 
case. He had and brought me some letters. 
He then produced a circular letter sent him by 
Smith and saw for the first time that his candi- 
date for judge was the same lawyer that made 
him pay the fanning mill note. That settled it. 
Wilson got five votes in that family and would 
have gotten eight if the old woman and the two 
girls could have voted. 



CHAPTER XXXIII 

Ku Klux Outrages 

THE accounts in the papers of the Ku 
Klux outrages in the South interested 
me and in company with three friends 
I went south to investigate. We went into 
Chatham County, North Carolina, where they 
were said to be the worst, and remained there 
about two weeks. We quietly investigated 
several cases, and in each case we reached the 
conclusion that the social conditions and offenses 
charged justified the punishment. One case 
happened near where we were stopping. A 
white woman and colored man were living in a 
little one- room log hut as man and wife, but 
were not married. The Ku Klux riders whipped 
them and then tied the man astride of a pole 
some four feet from the ground and left him 
there all night. As he had nothing on but a 
pair of trousers and the mosquitoes were thick, 
he suffered from them considerably, but his 
offense was great in the opinion of the people. 
He was released in the morning on his promise 

(208) 



KU KLUX OUTRAGES 209 

to leave the neighborhood. The offenses were 
steaHng and failure to observe social relations 
generally. No doubt there were many cases 
much more serious, but we did not find any. 
We were strong Republicans and came home 
with the opinion that these accounts of Ku Klux 
outrages were very much exaggerated. 

It was expected by my friends that Wilson 
would help me by court appointments when he 
got on the bench, but he did not. On the 
contrary, he tried to show that he was not 
partial to me. He stood so straight in this 
respect that he leaned a little backwards. His 
intentions were all right, but he was determined 
to be an impartial judge. He pushed me pretty 
hard and scolded me more than he did any other 
lawyer. I got restive under it and one day in 
court after he had been pretty rough on me I 
lost my temper and said, *'I don't want any 
favors. I expect the same treatment that you 
give to others. This is my right, but you are 
teaching me, by your unnecessary discrimina- 
tion against me, to regret that you were elected 
a judge." The lawyers all looked approval. 
Wilson paused for half a minute and then 
slowly said: "Maybe you are right. I owe my 



210 THE TALE OF A PLAIN MAN 

election to you, but while on the bench I don't 
wish to feel that I am under any obligation to 
you for it. But there is no reason why you 
should be treated any different from the others 
and I will try to see that you have no just cause 
of complaint." After that I had no cause of 
complaint, though I never had any unusual 
favors from him. But I expected none and did 
not look for any when I worked for his election. 
Wellsboro was a quiet, modest little village 
of twelve hundred people. There were no 
police guards or watchman of any kind. A 
burglary or robbery was unknown. The only 
bank in town was robbed one night and all the 
cash and bonds stolen. The robbers, five or six 
of them, came from the State of New York. 
They tied and gagged the president, his wife 
and daughter and son. They carried the son, 
who was the cashier, into the bank and forced 
him by threats of torture to open the combina- 
tion safe. After the robbery they all got away. 
There was great excitement in the community, 
and farmers and town people tramped the roads 
with guns, revolvers, pitchforks and axes, look- 
ing for them. They had divided the spoils and 
separated, but one of them, Mike Cosgrove, 



KU KLUX OUTRAGES 211 

was captured and identified by the president's 
family. Court soon convened and he was put 
on trial. To all questions concerning the 
robbery he would answer, **Nixy, weeden." 
L. P. Williston, who had served four years as a 
United States judge in one of the territories, 
defended him. The courthouse was filled with 
people. When the trial began Cosgrove was 
brought into the courthouse handcuffed by 
Steve Brown, sheriff. Judge Williston arose and 
with great indignation denounced the sheriff 
for handcuffing the prisoner. Judge Wilson 
asked the sheriff why he did not take the 
handcuffs off. The sheriff said that the prisoner 
insisted on keeping them on. There was great 
excitement and craning of necks. Judge Wilson 
said, "Very well, this is a free country. A man 
may wear bracelets if he wishes. If the prisoner 
prefers handcuffs as bracelets no one should 
object; least of all the prisoner's counsel. The 
court does not. Proceed." After this remark 
of the judge the excitement subsided and the 
trial proceeded. On several indictments the 
prisoner was convicted and sentenced to the 
full penalties. 



CHAPTER XXXIV 

District Attorney 

IN 1874 I became a candidate for district 
attorney. Th e primaries were in September. 
There were thirty-five boroughs and town- 
ships in the comity. My opponents were 
Horace B. Packer and Gus Redfield. We made 
quite a spirited contest in the county, visiting 
the voters in the villages and on the farms. 
Packer had one advantage over me. He drove 
his father's old horse Bob, and Bob was known 
by every one in Delmar and Charleston. The 
sight of the horse would revive recollections of 
many kind acts of the doctor and many a serious 
illness that he had brought them through, but 
I had been a soldier, and the soldier vote was 
strong. My father had a beautiful iron -gray 
mare. She was a fine stepper and held her head 
up high, so I borrowed her and we toured the 
county. Country people like a good horse and 
she got me many votes. In fact, she got more 
attention and admiration than I did. I went 
over to a man plowing. He said, "Can you 

(212) 



DISTRICT ATTORNEY 213 

turn as good a furrow as that?" I said that he 
was doing very good work. I probably could 
not do as well, but I could plow. He turned 
the plow over to me. I think I turned a better 
furrow, but did not say so. He was satisfied 
and promised his support. One Saturday 
afternoon while going through a piece of woods 
I came upon eight or ten men shooting at a 
black knot in a board. The knot was about an 
inch and a half in diameter, but none of them 
had hit it. There had been a number of shots, 
as evidenced by bullet holes around it. I told 
them my business. One of them said, **If you 
can hit that knot I think you would make a 
good district attorney." I said, '*I could 
shoot at it. That is all that you fellows seem 
to be doing. " I took the rifle, made a quick 
sight and fired. The knot w^as gone; I don't 
know whether I hit it or the board and jarred 
the knot out, but I was a fairly good shot then. 
They all said they would vote for me. The 
county was pretty large and I could not cover 
it all. I had to leave the mines until the last 
week of the campaign. In Blossburg, Fall 
Brook, Morris Run and Arnot, known as the 
mines, there were five or six hundred Republican 



214 THE TALE OF A PLAIN MAN 

votes, and my opponents had spent much time 
there. The people were CathoHcs and mostly 
foreign. I went to Barney Murray's saloon in 
Blossburg and told him that I supposed I was too 
late to get any votes. "Begorry, " he said, "you 
will get the most of them. Father McDermitt's 
been talkin' to the byes for yez. He wants to 
see yez." I knew Father McDermitt. A year 
before when the little Catholic Society in Wells- 
boro had bought the Old Academy building for 
a parish church Mike Conway had brought 
Father McDermitt to me to examine the title 
and transact the business. When it was 
through I declined to take a fee from him because 
the lawyers in Wellsboro never charged a 
clergyman for services. Father McDermitt 
said that was no reason why I should not be paid 
a fee because he was a Catholic priest. I told 
him that made no difference, a preacher was a 
preacher and I would make no discrimination. 
I had forgotten the matter, but Father McDer- 
mitt had not and he had made the most of it 
to my advantage. I called on him and he was 
quite enthusiastic. He told me to spend my 
time in other places. I went away. I carried 
the mines by a large majority. I got more 



DISTRICT ATTORNEY 215 

votes than either of my opponents and became 
the party candidate. The convention was held 
at Tioga. After it was over Seely Frost of 
Roseville told me that he had promised my 
services to a Mrs. Ash ton, who was prosecuting 
Charles Sherman for assault and battery before 
Squire Pat Longwell in Roseville. There was 
much public sentiment for her. Seely Frost 
had been very strong for me in my campaign 
and I promised to be on hand and try her case. 
There had been a water famine in Roseville. 
Mrs. Ashton's husband had told Charley Sher- 
man to come to his pump and get water. When 
he came with a bucket she got hold of the pump 
handle and would not let him get the water. 
There was not enough water for her family. 
He pushed her rudely away and in the melee 
she was slightly hurt. It was a matter between 
Charley Sherman's wife and Mrs. Ashton's 
husband. The warrant had been served and 
Sherman had demanded a jury trial before the 
justice. The justice had written the names of 
twelve freeholders of the township and the 
prosecutor and defendant had alternately crossed 
out each three names. The six remaining were 
the jury. Henry Allen of Mansfield was 



216 THE TALE OF A PLAIN MAN 

attorney for the defendant. Pat Longwell had 
recently been elected and had tried no cases 
before. I had never met Pat Longwell, but had 
heard much of his oddity and drollness. I 
drove over to Roseville early, as I wanted to see 
what shape the justice had his record in, for it 
was seldom that a justice's record could be 
sustained on a writ of certiorari. He came to 
the door in response to my knock, and I told 
him I was to take part in the trial before him. 
He said, "Which side be you on?" I said, 
''The woman's." He said, "Come in. Henry 
Allen is on the other side and we will have a 
hard time to beat him. " Allen was a very 
aggravating lawyer. He, Frank Clark and John 
Adams were the attorneys in Mansfield. Trials 
before magistrates there frequently ended in 
fist fights between the lawyers, and Allen was 
feared by all the magistrates. He would make 
all kinds of objections and annoy and enrage 
them in every way. I asked to see the docket. 
There was none. I asked to see the papers. 
He had none. I said, "Where is the paper that 
was served on the jurors .f^" He studied a 
minute, and going to the tall old family clock 
brought from the top a sheet of foolscap paper 



DISTRICT ATTORNEY 217 

with about one-third of it chewed off. He said, 
"I saw the children chasing the dog with 
something in his mouth. This is the paper.'* 
It was the hst of the twelve men from which the 
jury was selected. He said the constable might 
have some papers, but that was all that he had. 
But he had a good memory and plenty of 
foolscap paper and a pencil. I told him I would 
make him up a record and if Allen took the case 
to court he must copy it, date it and sign it. 
He promised and I constructed a record from 
the facts which he gave me, writing it out plain 
in pencil. As no lawyers were present at the 
former meetings and the docket did not have 
to go to court on a writ of certiorari, I had hopes 
that the judgment would be sustained. When 
the trial began at one o'clock in the large bar- 
room of the Rose Hotel the room was packed 
with men, women and children. The sympathy 
for Mrs. Ashton was strong, not so much on 
account of the fuss at the pump, but on account 
of the misconduct of Ashton and Sherman's 
wife. Squire Longwell sat behind a small table 
in great dignity. It was his first trial and the 
eyes of his neighbors were upon him. He was 
not a learned man, and his grammar was poor. 



218 THE TALE OF A PLAIN MAN 

but he had horse sense. Allen objected to all 
of my questions and on each objection Pat 
would say, "The court overrules the objection." 
Once Allen began an argument in support of an 
objection. When Pat said, "Mr. Allen, the 
court overrules your argument," Allen says, 
"Will the court advise my client.^" Pat said, 
"Mr. Allen, the court cannot advise your client, 
but if it could it would advise him to get a 
lawyer or plead guilty." When the evidence 
was all in and the arguments were through, Pat 
charged the jury. He said in substance: 
"Gentlemen of the jury, it is for you and not 
for the court to pass on this evidence. If the 
court was to pass on this evidence it would find 
the defendant guilty pretty d — n quick and I 
expect you will do the same. Tom Ash ton had 
no business to carry on so with Sherman's wife. " 
There had been no evidence about Ashton and 
Sherman's wife, but the audience applauded 
the charge of the court. Allen was frantic. 
He began to write rapidly. The jury were out 
about two minutes and brought in a verdict of 
guilty. Again there was loud applause in the 
court room. Pat told Sherman to stand up. 
Allen demanded that sentence be delayed until 



DISTRICT ATTORNEY 219 

he could write out reasons in support of his 
motion for arrest of judgment. Pat got the 
idea that he must impose sentence before Allen 
filed his motion for suspension of sentence, that 
after the motion he could not sentence. In 
response to Allen's demand for delay, he said, 
"Mr. Allen, the court can't wait. Charles 
Sherman, stand up. " He stood up and Pat 
sentenced him to pay a fine and costs. I went 
down to Pat's house and completed the record, 
with the events of the trial, and went home. 
Allen sued out a writ of certiorari, and, instead 
of following my instructions, Pat signed the 
penciled record that I had made and sent it to 
court. Judge Williams knew my handwriting 
and came to see me about it. I told him the 
facts. He laughed heartily and decided that, 
"The court is not familiar with the handwriting 
of Justice Longwell. It is presumed that the 
return is correct. There is no provision in law 
that the return must be written in ink. The 
magistrate, while strongly intimating his opinion 
of the facts, still told the jury that it was for 
them to pass on the evidence. The judgment 
of Justice Longwell is affirmed and the excep- 
tions dismissed. " 



220 THE TALE OF A PLAIN MAN 

I had left the office of Wilson and Niles and 
had an office of my own. I had become 
acquainted with John Adams of Mansfield. 
He was to defend a woman in his vicinity 
charged with murder of her child. He had made 
great preparations for this trial. He came over 
to the November court with a new Prince 
Albert coat and strutted around full of the 
importance of a murder case on his hands. The 
indictment was submitted to the grand jury 
a,nd he dropped into my office. He had pre- 
pared his address to the jury with great care. 
I went into my back room at his request and he 
recited it to me. He had quotations from the 
Bible, Shakespeare, Byron, Burns and other 
poets. It was very afifecting. I could hardly 
restrain my tears. When he got through and 
I had complimented him on his masterly eflFort, 
Tom Wingate, the court crier, came along. 
John asked him if the grand jury had returned 
a bill in his case. Tom said they had ignored 
the bill, and thus a great effort was wasted and 
a speech of great brilliance was never delivered. 
John was much disgusted and left town that 
night with his speech and his new Prince Albert 
coat, both investments unproductive. 



DISTRICT ATTORNEY 221 

In the following January I was sworn in as 
district attorney, and while the principal cases 
for the commonwealth were tried by the older 
attorneys, I occasionally tried cases. There 
was a case against a married man who had posed 
as single before an ignorant and innocent girl. 
The evidence for the commonwealth was the 
unsupported testimony of the girl. Charles 
Copestick, a hard-headed Scotchman, was on 
the jury. I saw that he was against me. I 
knew that unless he was with me I could not 
win. My only witnesses were the girl and her 
baby. When I came to address the jury I 
quoted Robert Burns: "I've traveled much 
this weary world around and sage experience 
bids me this declare: If Heaven a boon to 
mortal man has given in all this melancholy 
vale, 'tis when a youthful loving pair in each 
other's arms pour out the tender tale beneath 
the milk-white thorn that scents the evening 
gale." Copestick, like all Scotchmen, loved 
Burns. The defendant was convicted. 

I began to forge ahead and was growing. 
J. B. Niles employed me to help him try a case 
for Sergeant Grosjean against tlie tannery 
company. It was a bill to restrain the tannery 



222 THE TALE OF A PLAIN MAN 

company from emptying the liquor from their 
vats into the stream which ran through Gros- 
jean's farm. The emptyings from the tannery 
polluted the water and made it unfit for his 
cattle to drink. In their answer to the bill the 
tannery company set up that they had tried 
to purchase Grosjean's farm and had offered 
him thirty-five hundred dollars for it. We 
denied this in our replication. When the case 
began before the master, John I. Mitchell, M. F. 
Elliott, attorney for the compan3^ said he now 
made a tender of the thirty-five hundred dollars 
for the farm. I said that I did not see any 
tender. He sent the secretary of the company 
over to the bank and got thirty-five hundred 
dollars in greenbacks and formally made the 
tender. I took it, saying we would deliver the 
deed the next day. Niles and Grosjean were 
excited and asked what I meant. I said, "You 
have sold your farm for twice its value. It was 
only worth about fifteen hundred dollars." 
The tannery people were astonished, but we 
retained the money and delivered the deed and 
the case was ended. Later Grosjean bought a 
larger and better farm, well stocked, was out 
of debt and prosperous. Things were coming 



DISTRICT ATTORNEY 223 

my way. I had learned that tact and manage- 
ment were more potent in the law practice than 
great knowledge of the law. 

In 1876 I went to Pittsburgh as a United 
States juryman and while there heard Robert 
Gibson defend two young men on trial for 
passing counterfeit money. I was much im- 
pressed with his conduct of the case. I came 
home determined to move to Pittsburgh. I 
resigned my office as district attorney and 
moved to Pittsburgh. I entered the office of 
B. C. Christy, at No. 70 Grant Street; was 
admitted to the Pittsburgh bar and began a long 
wait for clients. Soon Christy moved to other 
offices. During my first year there I had only 
one client and he was an accident. He was 
drunk and stumbled into my office looking for 
a lawyer. I got fifty dollars from him, which 
insured his return after he got sober. I managed 
his case, which had merit, satisfactorily and 
was paid fifty dollars more. 

In May, 1877, my wife died, leaving me two 
children, Harriet and Stephen. Her death was 
a great blow to me. She was a splendid woman. 
Devoted to her family, domestic, sympathetic 
and affectionate. I appreciated her more after 



224 THE TALE OF A PLAIN MAN 

her death than I did while she Hved. I was 
homesick and disheartened. I would gladly 
have gone back toWellsboro if I had had any 
excuse for doing so, but I had none except 
failure to get business. 

I was passing the Monongahela House and 
saw two men fighting. A crowd was gathering 
and I joined it. One knocked the other down 
and began to kick him. As was the custom in 
Wellsboro, I interfered. The man got up and 
seeing the promise of fair play in me renewed 
the fight. I was trying to stop it. They were 
not evenly matched. The big fellow said: 
"What have you got to do with this fight. '^ 
Get out of the way or I will hit you. " The other 
fellow objected to my presence also. *'Who are 
you.f^" said he. An inspiration came to me. 
I resembled John L. Sullivan, then the champion. 
I knew that he was passing through Pittsburgh 
to fight some one in the West. I said, "My 
name is Sullivan." "What, John L. Sullivan.'*'* 
said one. "Yes," I answered. After that 
nobody wanted to fight in that ward. The 
crowd cheered me. I was rushed into the hotel 
bar and drinks were ordered. I excused myself 
for a moment and when out of the room, bolted. 



DISTRICT ATTORNEY 225 

I got down an alley and around to my office, 
determined not to interfere with any more 
fights. 

W. W. Ketcham was United States district 
judge. In 1872 he was a candidate for governor. 
I was with the delegation from Tioga County 
at the state convention. We supported 
Ketcham and I was one of the numerous dele- 
gates who called on him and urged him to run 
as an independent candidate after Hartranft's 
nomination. He declined and supported the 
ticket and was afterwards appointed United 
States district judge. I met him, but he did 
not recall me. One day in 1878 he stopped me 
on the sidewalk and asked me if I was not one 
of those wild men from the northern tier who 
wanted him to run as an independent candidate 
for governor. He asked me how I was getting 
along. I told him I was in watchful waiting. 
Soon after that he appointed me assignee in 
bankruptcy of an estate and later appointed me 
master in several important equity cases in the 
bankrupt estate of William M. Lloyd of Altoona. 
Here began the nucleus of my practice. I made 
a number of clients out of creditors and others 
interested in these estates, and in the third year 



226 THE TALE OF A PLAIN MAN 

of my practice I got about twenty-five hundred 
dollars in fees. This was more than I ever 
could have made in Wellsboro in any year and 
I felt encouraged. James W. Houston was 
chief clerk of the wholesale grocery company 
of John S. Dilworth and Company. I made his 
acquaintance and by his influence I was 
employed for the First Reformed Presbyterian 
Church in its long litigation against the Rev. 
Nevin Wood side and his followers. This was 
very helpful to me. I had, while in Tioga County, 
joined the Masons, the Odd Fellows and a Post 
of the Grand Army of the Republic. I united 
with the same orders in Pittsburgh and was 
regular in my attendance. They brought me 
clients. I defended Charles Williams, ex-sheriff 
of Armstrong County, in a criminal suit in the 
United States Court for pension frauds in the 
spring of 1880. 




CHAPTER XXXV 

United States Attorney 

H. McCORMICK was the United 
States attorney. An altercation arose 
between us on the trial of a case. I 
told McCormick that I would be an applicant 
for appointment of United States attorney when 
his term expired in May. He laughed at me. 
He had the backing of Senator Don Cameron, 
C. L. Magee and Quay, and his reappoint- 
ment was regarded as certain. Rutherford B. 
Hayes was President. I stormed the attorney- 
general's office with petitions from the lawyers 
of the western counties, with apparently no 
result. I had met on several occasions Bishop 
Simpson of the Methodist Church. The wife of 
the President was a leading Methodist. I went 
to see Bishop Simpson. The result was that 
he went to Washington and saw Mrs. Hayes. 
I was appointed within a week after his visit. 
Every one was surprised. Nothing was said 
about Bishop Simpson's visit. 

Objections to my confirmation were filed in 

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228 THE TALE OF A PLAINiMAN 

the United States Senate. I did not know 
Don Cameron. He wrote to me that if I would 
appoint a friend of Magee's my assistant he 
thought objections to my confirmation would 
be removed. I wrote him that I could not do 
that. The man he named had been very strong 
against my appointment. I said there was a 
man who had done much to help me get this 
office, David Cameron of Tioga County; that 
one of the anticipated pleasures of the office was 
to appoint him my assistant. He had not asked 
it and I had made him no promise, but if I 
could not appoint my assistant they could take 
the office. If I had anything to give, it was for 
my friends, not my enemies. That I had always 
understood this rule was observed by the 
Camerons, but if he wished to violate it I would 
not. I gave the matter up then, supposing that 
my confirmation would be prevented by Came- 
ron, who was all powerful in the Senate. Great 
was my surprise when a few days afterwards 
I got a telegram from Senator Cameron saying, 
*' Your appointment was confirmed this morning. 
I like your pluck. Come down and see me." 
This was my first introduction to Senator 
Cameron. Afterwards I got to know him well. 



UNITED STATES ATTORNEY 229 

Cameron was not a dealer of political cards. 
At the head of the strongest political organiza- 
tion in this country, he was at all times indepen- 
dent of it, never subservient to it, true to his 
friends. He courted no one, flattered no one. 
He was honest, outspoken and square to all. 
McCormick was not only surprised, but gave 
very foolish interviews in the papers. He said 
the President had appointed a fool to the office. 
The reporters came to me to get what I had to 
say. I said I would not say anything, and by 
my silence demonstrate who was the fool. 
I appointed Dave Cameron one of my assistants 
and was fortunate in the retention of George C. 
Wilson as the other. He was very capable and 
has since won distinction at the bar. 

In 1882 the Democratic State Convention 
met in Pittsburgh. My old Wellsboro friends, 
Walter Sherwood and A. C. Churchill, were 
delegates from Tioga County. Just before the 
convention met Walter Sherwood called upon 
me and wanted me to take Churchill's place in 
the convention. Churchill was sick at his hotel 
and unable to attend. I objected strongly. 
I was anxious to oblige Sherwood, but this was 
going too far. I was and always had been a 



230 THE TALE OF A PLAIN MAN 

Republican and then held the office of United 
States attorney under a Republican President. 
Sherwood was insistent. While he was a 
Democrat and I a Republican, we had always 
worked together and helped each other when 
we could do so without party disloyalty in Tioga 
County. He said that Churchill and I were 
both unknown in the convention. That we 
were of about the same age and height. That 
Churchill was hard up and needed an office. 
That they were sure to elect a Democratic 
governor that year, owing to dissensions in the 
Republican party. That if Churchill got an 
office it would help the Democratic organization 
in Tioga County as he was the editor and 
proprietor of the Wellsboro Gazette, the only 
Democratic organ in the county. That it was 
known that Churchill was a delegate. That 
if he did not show up in the convention his 
chances were gone. That all I had to do was 
to go into the convention, answer to Churchill's 
name and vote as he did. I was not anxious 
to help the Democratic organization in Tioga 
County and was not interested in Churchill, 
but Walter had helped me in too many hard 
contests in Tioga County to refuse him and I 



UNITED STATES ATTORNEY 231 

finally consented. He gave me Churchill's 
credentials and I went into the convention witb 
Walter and answered "Present" when 
Churchill's name was called. Walter's name 
was called just before mine and I voted upon 
all questions as he did. I was not so enthu- 
siastic as he was, but applauded when he did. 
Some one came from the platform and whispered 
to him and he turned to me with a scared look 
and said, "Churchill has got to make a speech." 
He had a reputation as a public speaker and he 
was to be called upon for a speech. I refused, 
but Walter urged me and said it would give the 
whole thing away if I refused, but I said to him, 
" What on earth will I say ? " He told me to pitch 
into Cameron and Quay, Republican leaders, 
and say something good for Robert E. Pattison, 
who was Walter's candidate for governor. 
Just then Churchill's name was called. Walter 
had just time to tell me that I must say some- 
thing against a protective tariff. I was sick of 
the business. I told Walter that I would 
slander Cameron and Quay for his sake, but 
that I would not assail the tariff. That subject 
to me was sacred. I got up and did the best 
that I could. I smashed away at Cameron and 



232 THE TALE OF A PLAIN MAN 

Quay and praised Pattison. There were cheers 
and applause. Walter muttered, "Say some- 
thing about the stalwart Democrats of old Tioga 
County." There was only one that I cared 
anything about and that was Walter, so I spoke 
of him: "My young friend by my side who 
had stood like a rock against the Republican 
hosts and who would go back with renewed 
faith and courage if the convention nominated 
Pattison." I sat down amidst applause and 
Walter patted me on the back. Pattison was 
nominated and after we got out of the conven- 
tion I expressed myself freely to Walter in a 
somewhat different way than I did in the 
convention. Pattison was elected and Churchill 
got an appointment and the Democratic organi- 
zation of Tioga County was saved. Governor 
Pattison wrote Churchill offering him the 
appointment and said that he was very much 
pleased with his speech in the convention. 



CHAPTER XXXVI 

Beaver's Campaign Against Stewart 

I STUMPED the state in the fall campaign 
in the contest between General Beaver and 
John Stewart for governor in 1882. I was 
with Beaver throughout the campaign. We 
started in at Somerset. Stewart addressed a 
large audience in the courthouse the night 
before. I attended Stewart's meeting. I have 
never heard an abler political speech. His 
denunciation of boss ring rule was masterly 
and convincing. The audience applauded him 
heartily. I had hard work to keep from 
applauding myself, although I was there to 
speak the next night for Beaver. I told Beaver 
that I was afraid that Stewart would get enough 
Republican votes to elect Pattison, the Demo- 
cratic candidate, but Beaver was not worried. 
I gave him a pretty good account of Stewart's 
speech. He answered Stewart the next night. 
I was not impressed with his speech. The 
applause was not so hearty and spontaneous. 
In fact, there was very little of it. Beaver was 

(233) 



234 THE TALE OF A PLAIN MAN 

a good man and had a splendid record, but 
Republican revolt was in the air. It was a cold 
campaign resulting in the election of Pattison. 
Stewart, of Irish ancestry, ran through the state 
like John the Baptist with a flaming sword, 
crying, "Prepare ye the way, prepare ye the 
way, for the kingdom of the people is at hand!*' 
Cleveland's election in 1884 and Democratic 
mistakes in state and nation brought the Republi- 
cans back in 1886, and Beaver was renominated 
and elected. I made two speeches in that 
campaign, for which I was removed from office 
by President Cleveland in October, 1886. A 
Democratic district attorney in Missouri was 
removed from office at the same time for the 
same offense, but he was reinstated. I did not 
blame the President for my removal. Raised 
in the Cameron school of politics, I believed that 
the office belonged to some Democrat and I 
have always regarded Cleveland as one of the 
best Presidents that the country has ever had. 
His stand for sound money against his party 
raised him to the rank of a statesman. His 
whole official course evidenced that his purpose 
was first for the welfare of the country. After 
General Beaver's election my name was men- 



BEAVER'S CAMPAIGN 235 

tioned in the papers as attorney-general. I 
made no effort to get the appointment. Beaver 
sent a mutual friend to see me. I was told that 
the governor wanted to appoint a lawyer for 
whose legal ability he had great respect, a man 
that he could consult and who was a better 
lawyer than he was. I told the emissary that 
I had not applied for the appointment and did 
not intend to, that I was glad that in selecting 
his attorney-general he was applying a test that 
would make nearly every lawyer in the state 
eligible. 

I think it was in 1887 that I was a delegate 
to the Republican State Convention. Judge 
Williams of Tioga County was a candidate for 
judge of the State Supreme Court. I was very 
much interested in his candidacy and had visited 
different people in his interest. I placed him 
in nomination before the state convention, and 
in doing so I made a great blunder in my speech. 
I thought I was saying that he was Dever 
accused of partiality while on the bench, but I 
used the word impartiality. There was much 
laughter and a delegate from Philadelphia 
yelled, "That's the man we want." He was 
nominated by acclamation, not so much through 



236 THE TALE OF A PLAIN MAN 

the blunder in my speech, but because the 
bosses had agreed upon it before, though it 
looked as if my assurance that he was never 
impartial had done it. He was elected and 
made a splendid judge. 

I had married Elizabeth White, daughter 
of Robert G. White, of Wellsboro, who for 
many years was president judge of that 
judicial district. To us were born six children, 
three boys and three girls; two of the boys 
died when seven and nine years old. When 
the first boy, Robert, died I suffered all the 
grief that a father can know in the loss of a son. 
For several days after the funeral I did not go 
to the office. My wife suffered as much or 
more. He was past seven years old, a bright, 
lovable child. For the first time in my life I 
thought seriously of the question of life after 
death. I worked out an argument and append 
it here, in the shape of a brief: 



CHAPTER XXXVII 

Life vs. Death — A Lawyer's Brief for the 
Plaintiff 

THERE is no question about which we 
think so much, no question in which 
we are so deeply interested as the 
question, "Does death end all?'* I can 
easily prove that death does not end all, 
but that we Hve after what is called death, 
if I am permitted to refer to the Bible as 
authority. But I would be required to prove 
that the Bible is the revealed word of God, and 
this I cannot do, for I am unacquainted with 
any evidence of this except the Bible itself. I 
must then draw my conclusions from things 
about us that we see and hear and know. We 
know that man is an animal, that our bodies 
are animal, that we possess all the appetites of 
the other animals and that what they can do 
by instinct we may learn to do. We know also 
that man possesses what no other animal does, 
viz., the ability to acquire a knowledge of all 
earthly things. Coming into the world helpless, 

(287) 



238 THE TALE OF A PLAIN MAN 

ignorant, inferior to all other animals, he goes 
out of the world superior to them all, and that 
superiority is measured by the opportunities 
which he has improved to acquire knowledge. 
The young bird need not be taught to build its 
nest, but builds its first one unaided, as well 
as its last. The fox digs his first hole without 
help. A bird cannot dig a hole, neither can a 
fox build a nest, but man can do all things, but 
he has first to learn how. He does nothing by 
instinct. He has no instinct. Therefore, we 
know that man is different from all other 
animals and superior to all other animals in his 
ability to acquire knowledge. He can see no 
better than the fox. He can hear no better. 
A meal when he is hungry gives no greater 
satisfaction. His uneducated senses are no 
better and give him no greater enjoyment. 
He possesses no superiority to the other animals, 
visible to the eye. We know that this superiority 
exists, because we feel it ourselves and recognize 
it in others. It is an unlimited power, almost 
infinite and as yet has never been tethered nor 
its boundaries defined. We call it the mind, 
the soul, the spirit of man. It does not exist 
in any one organ, neither the brain, the heart. 



LIFE vs. DEATH 239 

nor any one part, yet these organs are essential 
to its existence. It is not nourished by food. 
The body hungers and thirsts, but the mind or 
soul does not. The body suffers with cold and 
heat, but it is the body alone that suffers. The 
body is afflicted with disease, but not the mind 
or soul. Sometimes communication between 
the body and mind is cut off by disease, but the 
soul is still imprisoned in the body. There is 
in this life a clear and well-defined distinction 
between the soul and the body. Love and hate 
are not of the body. The body with its appetites 
satisfied and in health, is content, while the soul 
or mind may be stricken with grief or groaning 
in despair. We may weep with grief until the 
eyes are red with weeping, but it is not the 
smarting of the eyes that grieves us. It is the 
loss of some loved one, or other sorrow. We 
may suffer bodily pain until we weep, but we 
do not grieve. As soon as the pain is relieved 
we cease to weep. Hunger, cold, thirst, heat, 
do not bring grief. These are bodily sufferings. 
We know when we do wrong. Sin brings remorse. 
We then say our conscience troubles us. This 
is because we have violated a law of the soul, 
but the body does not suffer for this. There 



240 THE TALE OF A PLAIN MAN 

are two codes or sets of laws. One is the 
physical or bodily code — ^the other is the spiritual 
code. If I put my hand in the fire I break a 
physical law. I feel the pain, it is in the hand, 
but my mind or soul does not suffer. If we do 
wrong we suffer. The suffering is not in the 
hand or limb or head. We cannot locate it 
anywhere, and yet we suffer. We have broken 
a spiritual law; our conscience tells us that. 
Now can this soul or mind exist without the 
body? All that it enjoys here, all that it 
suffers here is not of the body. Love and hate, 
joy and sorrow, have no connection with the 
body. Grief is foreign to it. Remorse of con- 
science is not of the body. I use the term soul 
or mind or spirit, but by these terms I mean 
the man, the body being but the house in which 
he resides. If the body then does not con- 
tribute to joy or grief; if joy and grief come to 
us while in the body, entirely distinct from it, 
then the body is not essential to them. We 
can exist without the body and experience 
everything that we now experience in the body. 
In other words, all of our appetites die when the 
body dies, all that the body enjoys is simply 
the satisfaction of its appetites. Without 



LIFE vs. DEATH 241 

hunger we do not enjoy food, but it is the body 
that gets hungry, not the soul. Without cold 
we do not want heat, but it is the body that 
gets cold. When the body dies then all of our 
desires for things of this world die with it, so 
that when we leave the body we have no further 
use for it, and there will be no resurrection 
of it. But our love does not die, our hate 
does not die, our memory does not die. These 
we retain and do not require the body to sustain 
them. I do not claim that I have yet estab- 
lished that we do exist after the dissolution of 
the body, but simply that we can so exist; that 
joy and sorrow, love and hate, fear and con- 
fidence, grief and despair are not of the body. 
Neither does the body affect or influence any of 
these except at our command, and that no 
element or organ or office of the body produces, 
affects or influences any of these; and therefore 
the body is not and cannot be essential to the 
realization of them. All of our conceptions, 
all of our thoughts of our condition after the 
dissolution of the body are of joy or sorrow. 
We will either be happy or unhappy after we 
leave the body. No one hopes or expects to be 
happy by the gratification of any bodily appe- 



242 THE TALE OF A PLAIN MAN 

tite, and to reach the happiness which we hope 
to obtain, and to experience the sorrow which 
we fear we will meet, we do not require the body 
or the performance of any office which it now 
performs. If then we may regard it as estab- 
hshed that existence may continue without the 
body and that we may realize all that we now 
realize in the body, let us pass to the considera- 
tion of the question. Do we exist after the body 
dies? We cannot see man outside the body. 
We cannot see the soul with mortal eyes. We, 
therefore, do not know that man survives his 
body. We have seen how the body is not 
essential to the existence of the soul or the man. 
That all that we expect to enjoy after we are 
done with the body, all that we hope to enjoy 
does not depend upon or require the body. It 
is said that we cannot realize the existence of a 
soul or a man without form or shape or size, 
but can we see grief or love or hate except by 
its manifestations in the body.'* If you look 
through an opera glass you see nothing, but 
turn the screw until the lens is brought to the 
right distance from the eye and you see the 
object. Who knows but that, when freed from 
the body we shall see and know each other well.? 



LIFE vs. DEATH 243 

While in the body our vision is not adjusted to 
see spiritual things. We can see only physical 
things, objects that are amenable to the same 
laws that govern our bodies. Now the spirit, 
the soul, the man, is not subject to the laws of 
gravitation or of heat or cold. We know that 
the mind or spirit or soul exists and that it is not 
influenced by any physical law, but by the law 
of good and evil. Good deeds make us happy, 
evil deeds make us unhappy. The violation of 
every physical law brings its penalty and every 
evil act brings the penalty of remorse. It is a 
sense of having done wrong. It brings grief, 
sorrow and shame. We know by our conscience 
that there are spiritual laws. The soul, spirit 
or man is not his thoughts or his reasoning or 
logic. It often runs contrary to our judgment 
and logic. It often enables us to control our 
thoughts and circumvents them. I have often, 
when unable to sleep, gotten up and put a hard 
lozenge in my mouth. I knew that I must keep 
awake until it dissolved else I might swallow 
it and be choked, and in trying to keep awake 
I have gone to sleep. We know by observation 
and experience that there are physical laws. 
We will all concede that the spiritual laws were 



244 THE TALE OF A PLAIN MAN 

made by the same Creator who made the 
physical laws. They are of equal antiquity and 
equally certain. If then we study and under- 
stand the physical laws of the Creator we can 
get some idea of the plan concerning the spiritual 
laws. We look about us and see the world full 
of life, but no death. We speak of death, but 
there is none. Dissolution is the proper word. 
We say a tree or plant or flower is dead, but 
it is not so. The elements that compose the 
tree or plant have been released. That is all, 
and they have returned to their own class. 
The chemist will tell you that certain substances 
make up the plant, and he will separate it and 
collect and weigh each particle, and the sum of 
the parts will equal the plant when alive, and 
so with a man. He will separate the body and 
collect and weigh it, and the sum of the parts 
will equal the body. All is accounted for. 
Nothing is lost, nothing is destroyed. It is 
said fire destroys the wood, but it does not. 
It has simply released the gases and elements 
that compose the wood. We may cremate a 
human body. We have simply done by fire 
what nature will itself do in time — released the 
elements that compose it. We can dissect 



LIFE vs. DEATH 245 

a body, we will find what composes the blood, 
the bones, the heart, the brains, the skin, the 
hair, the nerves, but we do not find any trace 
of the soul, the spirit, the man. The mind, the 
spirit, the soul, the man, is either dead, dead in 
earnest, annihilated completely, or it lives on. 
If it dies it is the only thing about the man 
that does die. It is the only thing that dies. 
We know that it exists in man. We feel it, 
see it, hear it, we know that it exists. Dissolu- 
tion comes. We carefully examine and find 
everything but the soul, we find that every 
ingredient that entered into the composition of 
the man lives on in its natural state; not one 
particle dies. We find them all there. Can 
it be said that the soul, the most important 
thing in the man, dies when all the other things 
live.'^ Can it be said that the soul which carries 
the key to the future dies when everything else 
lives.'' The soul which alone retains memory, 
love, hate, fear and remorse and can exist and 
keep all of these without the body does not die. 
No, it lives on. The man lives on. He is 
released from the body, that is all, and takes with 
him his joy, his sorrow, his love, his hate, his grief, 
his memory and his remorse for his evil deeds. 



246 THE TALE OF A PLAIN MAN 

For the violation of physical laws there is no 
respite, no reprieve, and while I do not see how 
there can be for the violation of spiritual laws 
without an atonement, I do not desire to enter 
upon the discussion of this subject. My 
purpose is simply to advance what seems to me, 
argument, that we live after what is called death 
without calling upon the Bible for any aid or 
relying upon any promise but what is known by 
all to be true, substantially as stated. There 
is a wide difference between belief and knowl- 
edge and we must not confound them. We may 
believe what may take place after the dissolution 
of the body; we know only what we have seen 
and measured. Yet we often believe a theory, 
supported by our reason, as completely as if 
it were supported by positive testimony. A 
jury struggling in the dark, in doubt and 
uncertainty, finally begin to think they believe. 
Their beliefs grow stronger until it ripens into a 
conviction, and, under their oaths, they render 
a verdict for life or death. They do not know. 
The evidence is conflicting. They did not see 
the crime committed and yet they become 
convinced. Very few of our beliefs or con- 
clusions are supported by positive evidence. 



LIFE vs. DEATH 247 

It is a common saying that no one should be 
condemned on circumstantial evidence, and yet 
circumstantial evidence is generally more satis- 
factory and conclusive than positive evidence. 
A confession is termed positive or direct evi- 
dence, and yet there are not a few cases where 
persons charged with crime have confessed their 
guilt and been punished, and afterwards their 
innocence has been fully estabhshed. Suppose 
a friend should cease to breathe and lay for a 
time apparently dead and you would believe 
him to be dead, but finally he revives and tells 
of things spiritual that he saw and heard. You 
would not believe him. You would think he 
dreamed it. It is impossible to obtain direct or 
positive evidence of life after the dissolution of 
the body, but we should give to circumstantial 
evidence supporting this theory the same weight 
and credit that we would give to circumstantial 
evidence supporting any other theory or proposi- 
tion. Circumstances only should be considered 
which support the theory, and they should be 
such as exclude all other theories. Then if we 
are able to forge about our theory a chain of 
circumstances that point directly to its truth 
and exclude any and all other explanations, we 



248 THE TALE OF A PLAIN MAN 

may fairly say our theory is proven, and proven 

as absolutely as it is possible to prove anything 

by evidence. The conscience is evidence of life 

after dissolution. Man is the only animal that 

has a conscience. We can teach a dog to fear 

the consequence of disobedience, but it is our 

punishment that he fears. It is the fear of 

punishment hereafter, the fear of something 

that we must face hereafter, that gives us pain 

of conscience, and it is the conscience that 

restrains us, for a very small percentage of us 

know the law, but it is the fear of something in 

the life to come that makes most good people 

good. Take away the conscience and anarchy 

would reign. The laws could not preserve the 

peace. Now why is the conscience given alone 

to man — unless man lives after the dissolution 

of the body.'^ Certainly it cannot be said that 

the conscience was implanted in our breasts 

simply as a police regulation for the general 

good while in the body ! The conscience is given 

to warn us of evil and guide us to happiness in 

the life to come. If we obay the whisperings 

of conscience we cannot go far wrong. A 

conscience may become so seared and callous 

with repeated violations as to give forth no 



LIFE vs. DEATH 249 

warning, but if we do not abuse it, it will warn 
us of danger and, like the rattle on the snake, 
was put there for that purpose. No one ever 
doubts his conscience. He may doubt his 
judgment, but never his conscience. The fact 
that we have a conscience is a strong circum- 
stance that we are not annihilated by the dis- 
solution of the body, but that we live on, else 
I can see no use or purpose in having a conscience 
at all; and it being conceded by all that so far 
it has not been discovered that anything is 
created in vain, and being unable to see any use 
or purpose of the conscience except that we 
live on after the dissolution of the body, I am 
compelled to recognize the conscience as strong 
evidence that dissolution of the body does not 
end all. We frequently hear the expression 
that man is a strange animal. It is only what 
we call his soul that is strange. In his physical 
organization there is nothing any more strange 
about a man than in that of other animals. We 
get some idea of the Creator by a study of his 
plans. We know that the ear was intended to 
hear with, and the eye to see with. We know 
also that it was intended that man should be 
nourished by food. We know that his teeth 



250 THE TALE OF A PLAIN MAN 

were intended to eat with and his feet to walk 
with. We read the plans of the Creator in this 
respect very plainly. We see birds building 
nests and we know that it was the plan of the 
Creator that birds should live in nests, and we 
see that after thousands of years they still live 
in nests. We know also that it was the plan 
of the Creator that foxes should live in holes 
in the ground. Now we look upon the creation 
of the world and see no change or deviation in 
the plans of the Creator. We see also that each 
plan has a purpose. We cannot find a plan 
without a purpose. When we recognize a habit 
or custom that is universal with the animals 
of that family we know that the Creator intended 
it to be so and that he had a purpose in it. We 
know that beavers build dams across streams, and 
we, therefore, know that the Creator intended 
that beavers should build dams across streams, 
and for a purpose, for they must have deep water 
and they cannot get that in forest streams with- 
out damming them. Now we know that a great 
many different nations and tribes have been 
found in the world, and that there has never 
yet been found a nation or tribe that did not 
worship some being or thing as infinite, and 



LIFE vs. DEATH 251 

whatever their forms of worship have been, they 
beheved in existence after the dissolution of the 
body. Now, when we find that worship is 
universal with the human race we know that 
it was intended that man should worship, and 
when we find that the creeds of all religious 
worship declare that man shall live after the 
dissolution of the body, we are forced to con- 
clude that it was the plan of the Creator to 
place in the human breast a belief in life after 
the dissolution of the body; and as every plan 
of the Creator has a purpose and as belief in a 
future life can be fulfilled only after the dissolu- 
tion of the body, we are forced to conclude 
that man must live after the dissolution of the 
body. If there is no life after dissolution why 
would we find every nation and tribe of the 
earth worshipping some thing or being as a God? 
And why would we find the creed of every 
worship teaching life after dissolution.'^ I know 
that individuals have taught differently, but 
they have never succeeded in establishing their 
doctrines or creeds in the nation or tribe where 
they taught. This proposition is not met by 
the allegation that the desire to live after dis- 
solution is natural and that the wish is father 



252 THE TALE OF A PLAIN MAN 

to the thought. For why should we desire to 
live after dissolution if that desire is not created 
in us, and why is it created in us if it is not to 
be realized? Can we believe that it is placed 
in us for a delusion and a snare? If this desire 
to live after dissolution were not confined to 
man, if other animals worshipped something 
to which they recognized an accountability 
after dissolution, then my argument would 
fail; but they do not. Man is the only 
animal that ever had a God or a belief in 
future life. 

There is other evidence that appeals strongly 
to an argument for immortality. 

Man is an animal, and he differs only from 
the other animals in his power to acquire 
knowledge, in his possession of a conscience and 
in sexual love. No animal, bird or fish has 
sexual love. The doe that sends out her sex 
cry at night is calling no particular buck, nor 
does the answer carry a desire to meet any 
particular doe, and when they part it is totally 
immaterial to both whether they ever meet 
again or not. But the doe has maternal love 
for her young fawn just the same as a mother 
has for her child. It is the same in all animals. 



LIFE vs. DEATH 253 

But man alone has sex love. It is stronger 
than paternal love, stronger than friendship. 
The love between a man and a woman is the 
strongest emotion that exists and a man or a 
woman who has gone through life without 
experiencing it has not lived. Animals have 
memory, fear, hate and friendship, comrade- 
ship and companionship. But they have no 
love. Now, naturally, when we see this we 
wonder why man alone has it, why should a 
man and a woman loving each other devotedly 
find the greatest fear of death in the death of 
their love.'* I know that we are taught to love 
God, but when I find a man pretending to love 
God more than his wife I am suspicious of him. 
The love of God is not a natural love; it is an 
acquired love, a cultivated love, but the sex 
love is not acquired. It needs no cultivation. 
A young man's first case of love affects him 
worse and causes more pain and suffering than 
any subsequent attack. It comes unheralded, 
unannounced, and often one is inoculated at 
the first exposure. You can take it again after 
having had it — old age is no escape — and if 
you once have it you never get over it entirely, 
and the only real cure is to fall in love with 



254 THE TALE OF A PLAIN MAN 

someone else. It is natural. It is grand. All 
humans have it. It is stronger than life. It is 
stronger than death. It is in the last thought 
on the death-bed. It goes forth to plead and 
intercede for the criminal. It is simply impos- 
sible to diagnose it or define it. We all know 
it is. Any one who denies its existence has 
never had an opportunity to taste it and is 
probably abnormal, mentally or physically. God 
gives it to all of his children. Now, if we die, 
why have we got this great gift.^ Is anyone 
weak and foolish enough to believe that this 
power or faculty is given us by God so that we 
can love him more than any one else.'^ If so, 
there is a great defect in the plan, for no one 
ever loved God as much as he loved some 
woman, and God or the It, or whatever the 
creator is could never be so selfish. It is placed 
in us so that men and women who love each 
other may go on loving through all eternity. 
What an inducement, what a hope, what a 
glorious dream to believe that the woman or 
man we love as Heloise loved Abelard we will 
go on loving forever. In fact, this love or 
belief has done more to reconcile me to eternity 
than anything else. How could I desire to live 



LIFE vs. DEATH ^55 

forever except in the company of one whom I 
love and whose presence is a continuous joy 
to me? I would get tired of harps, golden 
streets and jasper walls. No. Sex love is a 
reason for immortality. We find it a good 
thing here, but in the hereafter we will have 
more use for it than we do here. If it were 
just for temporary use here it would not be 
worth while and we would under all conditions 
perhaps be better off without it. 

It may be said there has been much worship 
of false gods among the children of men and 
the question may be asked, Why was not the 
true worship given them.'' Into that field I do 
not desire to trespass. I do not undertake in 
this paper to criticise the Creator nor to state 
who and what the Creator is, but to prove 
without the aid of any religion, creed or Bible, 
that death does not end all and that we live 
on after the dissolution of the body. If we 
once believe that fully and sincerely, then our 
desire and effort will be so to live that when 
dissolution comes our lives while in the body 
will be acceptable to our Creator. 

I suffered greatly when my second son died, 
but I was then a man of sorrow and acquainted 



256 THE TALE OF A PLAIN MAN 

with grief. Three girls, Jean, married to W. J. 
Crump ton, and Margaret, Isabel, and John 
are living, the last three single. My oldest 
daughter, Harriet, is married to Dr. D. P. 
Hickling of Washington, D. C; my oldest son, 
Stephen, married Ida McCandless, daughter of 
Dr. J. Guy McCandless. They are all living. 

I was giving strict attention to the law practice 
and in connection with William H. Graham 
made considerable money in the organization 
of street railways in Allegheny City, where I 
then hved. We were pioneers in the use of 
electricity as a motive power in that vicinity. 



CHAPTER XXXVm 

Candidate for Congress 

IN 1890, Thomas M. Bayne, Congressman for 
the Allegheny district for fourteen years, 
was a candidate for re-election. His oppo- 
nent was George Shiras, III. There was a 
spii'ited contest. I supported Bayne, and a 
majority of the delegates were elected for him. 
At the convention he was nominated, but he 
declined the nomination and asked his delegates 
to nominate me. I knew nothing about it 
until the day before the convention, when I 
consented with much reluctance to accept if 
nominated. I was nominated and it created 
much surprise and much opposition. It was 
charged that I was not the choice of the district. 
The delegates had not been elected to nominate 
me. The newspapers all denounced it and a 
storm of protest arose from all sides. There was 
much merit in the opposition to my nomination, 
as I had not been a candidate before the people. 
Against the advice of some of my friends I 
wrote to the chairman of the county committee 

17 ^257) 



258 THE TALE OF A PLAIN MAN 

that if he would call a new convention, fixing 
the primaries in September, three months later, 
I would decline the nomination, become a can- 
didate and abide by the result. This was done, 
and the political atmosphere was cleared. There 
was a spirited contest between George Shiras, III, 
and me. He was popular, "to the manor 
born," while I was called a carpet-bagger. The 
organization was against me, but I had warm, 
capable friends, and a majority of the delegates 
were elected in my favor. The seats of a number 
of my delegates were contested. My strength 
was in the boroughs and townships. These 
delegates would not stay for days, until the 
contests were settled, and once adjourned, it 
would be almost impossible to reassemble them. 
My majority was not so large, and I saw the 
danger of a delegate contest. There was some 
technical error in the notices of contests. Andy 
Armstrong was named by the county committee 
to call the convention to order. He would act 
as temporary chairman until a permanent chair- 
man was elected. Armstrong was a friend of 
mine. I selected Charles W. Gerwig as my 
floor manager and we met at my rooms the 
night before the convention and mapped out 



CANDIDATE FOR CONGRESS 259 

our course. My delegates had their credentials, 
and when the contests were announced Gerwig 
was to raise a point of order that the notices of 
contests were defective and that they should 
not be received. Armstrong was to sustain the 
point of order, when, there being no contests 
before the convention, Gerwig was to move 
Armstrong's election as permanent chairman 
and after his election place me in nomination. 
We drilled on it until each man knew his work. 
Our enemies did not get knowledge of our plan 
until the convention was called to order. Then 
earnest protests were made to Armstrong. 
I feared he would weaken and I kept near him. 
But he stood up. When James S. Young, a 
Shiras delegate, announced the contests, Gerwig 
raised the point of order. Armstrong looked 
earnestly at me. I gave him a sharp nod to rule 
and he did, without comment. Then Gerwig 
moved his election as permanent chairman and 
he was elected with much applause. James S. 
Young then got up and said that Mr. Shiras 
could not get justice there, that a neighboring 
hall had been secured and that the Shiras 
delegates would now retire and meet in the other 
hall. We had anticipated this, but could see 



260 THE TALE OF A PLAIN MAN 

no way to prevent it, as delegates had the 
right to leave the convention. But John 
Murphy, chief of police, a great big popular 
fellow, whom every one knew and liked, saw a 
way to prevent it. He put his big, broad back 
against the door, the only means of egress, and 
said, "Sit down. If you fellows bolt, you have 
got to bolt in here. You don't get out." There 
had been many bolts in conventions before, but 
none was ever so effectually squelched. The 
situation was ridiculous. The protests of Shiras 
delegates were drowned in applause, amidst 
which I was placed in nomination and nomi- 
inated; a majority of all the delegates voting 
for me in answer to their names. Then I 
thanked the convention and we adjourned, while 
the Shiras delegates sat sullen in their seats and 
Murphy still stood with his back against the 
closed doors. After this there was no more 
talk of a bolt and I was elected by the usual 
majority. 

I took my seat when Congress met on the 
first Monday of December, 1891. The house 
was Democratic. Charles Crisp from Georgia 
was elected speaker. He was an able man and a 
good man. He placed me on the River and 



CANDIDATE FOR CONGRESS 261 

Harbor Committee the first term. The second 
term I was on the Judiciary General Committee. 
Crisp was good to me and recognized me fre- 
quently for motions and immaterial matters. 
Thomas B. Reed, ex-speaker, was our minority 
leader. William Springer was the chairman of 
the Ways and Means Committee. He was 
the recognized leader of the Democratic side. 
Charles Culbertson, from Texas, was a more 
able man, but Springer, having been in the 
house for twenty years, had the prestige. 
Others supposed that he knew, and he had no 
doubt about it. He also was next the speaker 
in the Committee on Rules. He offered a rule 
one morning for the consideration of a bill to 
which Reed raised a point of order. Crisp was 
afraid of Reed's knowledge of parliamentary law. 
After debate between Springer and Reed, Crisp 
sustained Reed's point of order. Springer 
jumped up and said, "Mr. Speaker, notwith- 
standing your ruling, I believe that I am 
right, and I would rather be right than be 
President." Reed replied, "Springer, you will 
never be either." I was about as green and 
ignorant as any, but I was observant and 
watchful. In the Fifty-first Congress, when 



262 THE TALE OF A PLAIN MAN 

Reed enforced his "counting quorum rule," the 
Republican majority was small. Sickness and 
other causes made it hard to keep a quorum. 
Several colored Republicans from Southern states 
were contesting Democrat's seats. It became 
necessary to seat some of these contestants to 
maintain a Repubhcan quorum, so the com- 
mittee brought in a rule for the consideration and 
disposal of some of these cases. Thirty minutes 
debate was allowed each side, when a vote 
was to be taken. The rule was adopted and 
the debate begun, then the vote was taken and 
the colored Republican seated. The Democrats 
were furious. They retired to the cloak room 
and denounced Reed as a "Czar" to each other. 
While they were there another election case 
was called up and another colored Republican 
seated. The Democrats rushed back to their 
seats and began to call "Mr. Speaker, Mr. 
Speaker." Reed sat quiet in the speaker's 
chair until the tumult had somewhat subsided. 
Then he said, "Gentlemen, you remind me of 
an old farmer up in Maine. He used to come to 
market town every Saturday afternoon and 
always drive home drunk. One time he was so 
drunk that he fell out of the buggy and the 



CANDIDATE FOR CONGRESS 263 

wheels ran over him. He yelled, 'Whoa!' so 
loud that the old mare backed up and ran over 
him again. What is the pleasure of the house?" 

Crisp was re-elected speaker in the Fifty- 
third Congress and W. L. Wilson became chair- 
man of the Ways and Means Committee. 
W. J. Bryan was a member. In this Congress 
Reed forced the Democrats to adopt his rule to 
count a quorum. It was modified only in this, 
that instead of the speaker counting the quorum 
he appointed a member from each side of the 
house to count the members present, and on 
their report to the speaker he declared that a 
quorum was present if there was one. For 
two weeks Reed blocked all legislation in the 
house and demonstrated absolutely the absurdity 
of the Democratic claim that quorum counting 
was unnecessary. Our side of the house did 
not answer when our names were called and as 
the answers of the Democrats did not show a 
quorum, nothing could be done but call the roll 
again. The Democratic majority was small and 
they could not secure an attendance of a 
majority of the house. 

Charles Culbertson from Texas was chairman 
of the Judiciary Committee of which I was a 



264 THE TALE OF A PLAIN MAN 

member. Governor Sayre of Texas was chair- 
man of the Appropriation Committee. They 
were both very able men. I got an appro- 
priation through this Congress for a post-office 
in Allegheny City through the help of Sayre. 
It was in the short session. During the pre- 
vious summer an old house in Pittsburgh had 
been torn down and while clearing out the 
cellar and excavating deeper, a barrel of old 
Monongahela whiskey was found that had 
probably been there for many years. It was 
bottled and the contractor gave me a quart 
of it. I sent it to Sayre. He always said that 
the whiskey saved the Allegheny post-office. 
It was very fine whiskey. 

The principal work of this Congress was the 
passage of the Wilson tariff bill. It was prac- 
tically a free trade bill when it left the house, 
but the senate put over six hundred amendments 
to it which changed its character entirely. 
When it came back in the house each one of 
the senate amendments was rejected and a 
conference demanded. The Democratic sena- 
tors told the house leaders that they must 
accept the amendments or pass no bill; that 
if the bill got back to the senate it would not 



CANDIDATE FOR CONGRESS ^^65 

pass at all; and so with much disgust and 
indignation the house withdrew its objection to 
the amendments and passed the bill as amended, 
when it went direct to the President without 
further senate action. When the vote was 
announced there was no applause on the other 
side of the house, but W. J. Bryan and Jfive or 
six colleagues went down to Wilson and took 
him upon their shoulders and carried him into 
the cloak room amid the sullen silence of the 
Democrats and the laughter and derision of the 
Repubhcans. Reed said to a few sitting 
around him, "An old negro chased an opossum 
all through a rainy afternoon and finally got 
him. He took him home and dressed and 
stuffed and baked him and sat down to eat him, 
but he was so fatigued and weak from his long 
hunt that he fell asleep. Another colored man 
came along and, looking through the window, 
saw the old man asleep with the opossum in 
front of him. He slipped into the room, took 
the opossuln out and ate him. Then, putting 
back the bones in front of the old man and 
dropping some fat and stuffing on his breast 
and sleeves, he shpped out again and awaited 
the result. When the old man awoke he 



266 THE TALE OF A PLAIN MAN 

stared at the opossum bones, saw the fat and 
stuffing on his breast and arms, felt of his 
empty stomach. 'Fo de Lord,' said he, 'dis 
nigger must have eaten dat possum, but it is 
de most onsatisfaetory meal dis nigger ever 
had.' " 

There was a comfortable Republican majority 
in the Fifty-fourth Congress and in the short 
session preceding it I joined with Warren Hooker 
and Jim Sherman of New York, Barthold of 
Missouri, Loudenslager of New Jersey, Heming- 
way of Indiana and others in an attempt to 
organize the next house. We selected Alex. 
McDowell of Pennsylvania for clerk, a man 
from New York as doorkeeper, a man from 
Missouri as sergeant-at-arms, and an Ohio man 
for postmaster. These four men had about two 
hundred and fifteen appointments. The older 
members had divided these appointments among 
themselves up to this time and they were all 
against our slate. Reed, Dingley, Cannon, 
Henderson, Payne and nearly all the older 
men had a slate of their own. The contest 
became quite sharp, but there was no opposition 
to Reed for speaker. There were a good many 
young men in the house. We were all much 



CANDIDATE FOR CONGRESS 267 

concerned about our committees, but we trusted 
Reed to play fair and not to use his committees 
to elect his slate. He was importuned to do so, 
but refused. Through the influence of Quay, 
Pennsylvania's thirty Republican members were 
solid for our slate and applying the Cameron 
rule of politics, in the proper placing of two 
hundred and fifteen appointments, our slate 
was nominated in the house caucus by a large 
majority. There was much talk about "a hog 
combine," but the leaders of the opposition got 
a few appointments, and in order to get these 
they had to be "good." I became the sole 
member of the slate committee. I believe I 
carried out every promise, and that my manage- 
ment was satisfactory. 

Reed sent for me, as he did for others, to 
consult about committee appointments. He 
asked me what committee I wanted. I told 
him that I wanted floor w^ork and would prefer 
to be on the Appropriation Committee. He 
said, "You have given me great relief. I sup- 
posed that you wanted to be chairman of Ways 
and Means." He said Harry Bingham had 
been on Appropriations for years and it was 
unusual to put two of the same party from the 



268 THE TALE OF A PLAIN MAN 

same state on a committee and he must put 
Bingham on. I called his attention to the size 
of our state and its large Republican delegation. 
Well, he said, he supposed he would have to 
do it. He said he had trouble about the com- 
mittees. I asked him if he had settled on any 
of them yet. He said, "Not finally, but if I 
live I am going to put Sauerherring of Vermont 
on Fish and Fisheries." He named over several 
for Banking and Currency. I said, "Those 
men will never agree upon a bill in the world.'* 
He said, "That's why I am going to appoint 
them." He thought he ought to appoint a 
Democrat from a certain Southern state on the 
Ways and Means Committee and asked me 
which of two men he named was the abler man. 
I named one of them. "That settles it," says 
he, "the other fellow gets it. I don't want any 
more trouble in that committee than is nec- 
essary." I recommended Hooker of New York 
for chairman of Rivers and Harbors, and all 
of the men who had been active in our slate 
contest for the committees of their choice. He 
subsequently appointed all of them as requested. 
He put me next to Chairman Joseph C. Cannon 
on Appropriations and I became, with Cannon 



CANDIDATE FOR CONGRESS 269 

and Sayre, the sundry civil sub-committee, the 
principal sub-committee of the Appropriation 
Committee. In this position I had plenty of 
floor work and met in conference different 
senators. I worked very hard and was growing 
to be an active, useful man in Congress. I 
found that tact and easy address were main 
factors in accomplishing results. I had no 
opposition for renomination to Congress and 
was generally regarded as a fixture in Congress. 
I was a strong supporter of Reed and had his 
confidence. He called me the house whip. I 
pushed an appropriation bill through for a 
soldiers' home at Danville, Cannon's home town, 
against his vote. I knew that he wanted it 
passed, but was afraid to support any one of 
the several towns in Illinois which wanted it. 
I liked Cannon. He was able and honest. I 
kept house on Q Street in Washington and had 
prominent members of the senate and house 
frequently to dinner. I thoroughly liked Reed. 
I had' a horse and two-seated wagon and on 
Sundays in summer frequently drove Reed out 
to the Falls of the Potomac, where we had a 
picnic. Usually Dalzell and Bob Cousins were 
with us. Reed thought that he could make 



270 THE TALE OF A PLAIN MAN 

better milk punch than any one else. We 
all agreed with him and each would bring a 
luncheon and we would spread it on a horse 
blanket under a tree and enjoy it, while Reed's 
wonderful humor and the milk punch added 
greatly to the entertainment. 

Stephen A. English, the author of "Ben 
Bolt," was a member of the house from New 
Jersey. Everybody loved "Ben Bolt," but 
English had grown old and crabbed and insisted 
on making a speech on nearly every bill. He 
was a Democrat. Obtaining recognition, he 
would step down in front of the speaker and 
talk until his time was exhausted. I had charge 
of an appropriation bill in the house one day to 
which there was much opposition. Controlling 
the time allotted, I had yielded to different 
members on both sides until I had only eight 
minutes left to close the debate. I arose to 
speak when English asked for five minutes. 
I would have been justified in refusing it, but 
I said, "Mr. Speaker, I have only eight minutes 
left in which to answer the numerous objections 
to this bill. I cannot yield five minutes to the 
gentlemen from New Jersey, but I yield five 
minutes to the author of 'Ben Bolt.' " There 



CANDIDATE FOR CONGRESS 271 

was applause. English consumed the whole 
eight minutes. When the vote was taken, to 
my surprise the bill passed by a good majority. 
Before the Fifty-fifth Congress was organized, 
in the short session of the Fifty-fourth, Hopkins 
of Illinois conceived the idea that he could 
beat Reed for speaker. He had seen how 
easily we had elected our slate of officers in the 
Fifty-fourth Congress and he undertook to 
follow the same plan. He was an able, ambi- 
tious man, but he was different from Reed. 
He had red hair, while Reed had scarcely any. 
He conferred with our organization and by 
liberal offers of committee appointments got 
the boys interested. I was in Pittsburgh attend- 
ing court. I got several telegrams from my 
friends urging me to come to Washington. 
When I got there they told me of Hopkins* 
ambition. I sat down on it flat. I told them 
that, no matter what they did, Pennsylvania's 
thirty Republican votes would be solid for Reed. 
That settled it. Hopkins abandoned his can- 
didacy for speaker. When the Fifty-fifth 
Congress organized there was no opposition to 
Reed and he was nominated and elected speaker. 
I was anxious to pass an Immigration Bill 



272 THE TALE OF A PLAIN MAN 

which I had introduced. It was before the 
Immigi'ation Committee. Reed was opposed 
to my bill and to the further restriction of 
immigration. He had appointed Barthold of 
Missouri chairman of the Immigration Com- 
mittee. Barthold shared Reed's views on 
immigration. This committee reported Bart- 
hold's bill one morning. Under the rules an 
amendment could be offered to the bill. Then 
an amendment to the amendment and then a 
substitute, after which no further offers could 
be made. Barthold had arranged to have an 
amendment offered, also an amendment to the 
amendment and then a substitute. I was busy 
and did not catch on. When the amendment, 
and amendment to the amendment had been 
offered and a member arose to offer a substitute 
Reed said, *'The gentlemen from Pennsylvania 
has the floor." At the same time Bert Kennedy 
came running down to my seat and said, "The 
Speaker says hurry up and offer your bill as a 
substitute. I grabbed it out of my desk and 
got up. Reed recognized me and I offered it 
as a substitute. The vote came first on the 
substitute. I had my speech. If it had not 
been for Reed I would have been shut out. 



CANDIDATE FOR CONGRESS 273 

Afterwards I said to Reed, "That was very nice 
of you. I appreciate it." He said, "Yes, I 
think you fared quite as well as if you had turned 
in for that red-headed son of a gun from Illinois 
for speaker." There had been no talk between 
Reed and me about Hopkins* candidacy for 
speaker. Reed was the best all-round man in 
Congress or in public life during his day. 

The greatest conversationalists that I have ever 
known were James G. Blaine, Benjamin Harris 
Brewster and Senator Fry of Maine. I knew all 
of the men in national public life of that period 
personally. 

The political situation in Pennsylvania in 
the beginning of 1896 was troublesome. John 
Wanamaker, who had been postmaster general 
under Harrison, was contesting Quay's leader- 
ship of the party. McKinley was a candidate 
for President. Wanamaker, Magee and Flinn 
were supporting him. Quay was silent. I 
realized that McKinley would be nominated. I 
wanted to retain the leadership in Quay. He 
was in Florida. I wrote out a paper to be 
signed by the Republican Congressmen of the 
state asking Quay to be a candidate for President. 
I thought that Quay could get the majority of 

18 



274 THE TALE OF A PLAIN MAN 

the delegates to the National Convention. The 
paper set forth that the sentiment was strong 
for Quay in their districts. I had made appoint- 
ments in the house for these congressmen. I 
was still the sole member of the slate committee. 
I obtained the signatures of all the Pennsylvania 
Republican members of the house but John 
Dalzell, George Huff and the member from the 
York district. I kept it quiet. When Quay 
returned from Florida I called upon him and 
advised him to be a candidate for President and 
get control of the delegates to the National 
Convention. That would put him in a situation 
to control the patronage of our state under 
McKinley. He approved the plan, but said he 
could not be a candidate without some senti- 
ment in the state for him. I said, " Suppose the 
congressmen from our state should sign a call 
upon you to be a candidate?" He said, "They 
would not do it." I said, "They have done it." 
I showed him my paper. That night the 
reporters of the associated press were sent for, 
and the leading papers in the whole country 
announced Quay's candidacy the next morning. 
The call signed by the congressmen was pub- 
lished with an appropriate acceptance from 



CANDIDATE FOR CONGRESS 275 

Quay. A spirited contest arose for delegates 
throughout the state between Quay and McKin- 
ley, I became a candidate for delegate to the 
National Convention from my district. Magee 
and Flinn called the county committee together 
and had them pass a resolution that the voters 
could vote their choice for President and that 
the candidates for national delegate must agree 
to support the candidate for President whom 
the majority vote favored. I refused to agree 
to this and sent out a card to the voters that I 
did not want them to vote instructions, that I 
was a candidate and if elected I would vote for 
Quay. I was elected and out of the four or 
five thousand votes only three or four hundred 
voted instructions. A very large majority of 
the delegates elected were for Quay. This 
brought about a meeting between Quay and 
Mark Hanna by which, after a state com- 
plimentary vote for Quay, the delegates were 
to go to McKinley. This programme was 
carried out. The opposition to Quay was 
unhorsed and Quay controlled the patronage 
under McKinley. 

Quay was the best politician of his day, but 
McKinley was a better diplomat and showed 



276 THE TALE OF A PLAIN MAN 

more of statesmenship in his politics. But the 
two of them, with Tom Piatt who was a past- 
master, made a great trio. McKinley was 
elected, together with a Republican house and 
senate. The country had had enough of 
Democracy. The great trouble with the Demo- 
cratic party in Congress was that the brains 
and leadership were in the Southern states. 
In the South the office of congressman was the 
most remunerative office. The salary was five 
thousand dollars per year, with postage, allow- 
ance and mileage, while in the North judges 
received ten and fifteen thousand dollars per 
year. Naturally the ambition of Southern men 
centered in Congress, while in the north Con- 
gress did not attract men reaching for large 
incomes. The result was that the brainiest, 
most capable men came from the Southern states, 
and brains in Congress, as well as in all other 
activities, win. But the Southern men did not 
understand or appreciate the industrial and 
commercial activity of the North. They were 
environed by the conditions of the South. 
They thought that the way to make the South 
prosperous was to reduce the prosperity of the 
North. They did not understand the true rule 



CANDIDATE FOR CONGRESS 277 

that the prosperity of the North insured the 
prosperity of the South, and thus PopuHsm and 
Bryanism controlled. They foolishly thought 
that by legislation they could make one com- 
munity prosperous and another poor and so 
they diverted their great abilities into foolish 
and unproductive channels. They were quixotic 
in their theories and fought windmills instead 
of facts. They were impractical and the 
Northern representatives with less abilities over- 
powered them because of their practical knowl- 
edge. A protective tariff that insured the home 
market to home producers was the best thing 
for the South, but they fought it because it 
increased the price to consumers, ignoring the 
fact that the price to consumers is subordinate 
to the ability of the consumer to pay. The 
prosperity of none of the states can be reduced 
by ruinous competition with imported products 
without reducing the prosperity of all of the 
states; neither can any one of the states be 
prosperous while all of the others are not. Our 
interstate commerce is so interwoven that what 
affects one state affects them all. Legislation 
for consumers at the expense of producers in 
this country is a mistake. All producers are 



278 THE TALE OF A PLAIN MAN 

consumers, while there are many consumers who 
are not producers and earners. Any legislation 
that reduces production and earnings affects 
by far the largest number. When a man is 
earning good wages he can afford to pay high 
prices. When he is not earning good wages he 
cannot afford to pay low prices. When a pro- 
ducer can sell his products at a fair profit he 
can afford to pay good wages. Destroy his 
profits and he must cease to produce, or reduce 
wages. In either event his employees suffer 
with him. Cripple any industry by ruinous 
competition or interfering laws and you injure 
all connected with it and benefit no one. Regu- 
lation of trade and commerce is right, but laws 
that impose a penalty on success are bad. 

During the campaign of 1896 I made a great 
many speeches in Pennsylvania and other states 
for McKinley. I was a fairly good stump 
speaker. I had had much experience and could 
handle a heckler very well. I was not always 
happy in my replies to questions from the 
audience, but the sympathy of the audience was 
always with the speaker and they would applaud 
any reply that the speaker made. But once I 
hit upon a good retort. 



CANDIDATE FOR CONGRESS 279 

There was much distress under Cleveland's 
administration, through 1893, 1894, 1895 and 
1896, among laboring men. Many industries 
were suspended and many mills were closed. 
I was discussing the hard times under Demo- 
cratic government, at Sharon, Pa., at a large 
meeting, when a man got up in the audience and 
said, "There have been no strikes under Cleve- 
land's administration." "No," I said. "A 
man has to get a job before he can strike. 
Under Cleveland there have been no strikes 
because there have been no jobs." I was 
asked no further questions. The audience 
evidenced their appreciation of my retort. 
They applauded well. 



CHAPTER XXXIX 

Governor of Pennsylvania 

IN 1897 I became ambitious to be Governor 
of Pennsylvania. I could have remained 
in Congress and perhaps it would have 
been wiser to do so, but the oflfice of governor 
of my state appealed to me and I resigned from 
Congress and became a candidate. My oppo- 
nents for the nomination were John Wana- 
maker of Philadelphia and Charles W. Stone of 
Warren, a member of Congress and former 
secretary of state and lieutenant governor. 
They were both strong men, both thoroughly 
acquainted with the people of the state and both 
popular. Ever since Wanamaker was post- 
master general in Harrison's cabinet, he had 
been opposing Quay. I had no promise of 
Quay's support. Wanamaker started a stump- 
ing tour over the state, holding his first meeting 
at Towanda in Bradford County. I followed 
him, speaking wherever he did. We both had 
large audiences everywhere. This was the first 
and only time that candidates for governor 

(280) 



GOVERNOR OF PENNSYLVANIA 281 

stumped the state before the primary elections 
for delegates were held. Our contest was quite 
spirited. The daily newspapers in Philadelphia 
and Pittsburgh had reporters with us and 
published full accounts of our meetings and 
speeches. Naturally the Quay men, who were 
all opposed to Wanamaker, were for me. 

Charles W. Stone did not hold any meetings. 
When Wanamaker went to Towanda he got 
the Black Diamond train on the Lehigh Valley 
Railroad to stop there for him. It had never 
stopped for any of the people of Towanda. 
He had a valet with him, who was a curiosity 
in Towanda. The people had heard of them, 
but had never seen one before. I had Alex. 
McDowell, clerk of the house at Washington, 
with me. He was past middle life and had 
gray hair and whiskers. He looked every inch 
the bishop. He was a great humorist and story- 
teller. When I began to speak before a large 
audience in Towanda, I said that Mr. Wana- 
maker was submitting his candidacy to the 
people and I was doing the same, that I had 
no promise of Quay's support, as charged, and 
did not know whether he would support me 
or not. I hoped that he would, that I was going 



282 THE TALE OF A PLAIN MAN 

to follow Wanamaker and speak wherever he 
did; that I would try to observe the same 
conditions that he did; that I had tried to get 
the Lehigh Valley Railroad officials to stop the 
Black Diamond train for me, but failed; that 
at my request Quay had tried to get it stopped, 
but had failed; that I apologized to the people 
for coming there in an ordinary day-coach, 
but that I had after much effort got a valet, 
that he was on the stage with me, and pointed 
to McDowell. They knew who he was and there 
was much applause. This broke the ice and 
I was listened to very closely and I thought I 
had made a good impression. While I was 
speaking McDowell had time to think out what 
he was going to say and when he followed me, 
he soon had the audience roaring with laughter. 
I had not previously said anything to him 
about introducing him as my valet. He indig- 
nantly denied that he was my valet. He said 
I was his, that I blackened his boots and shaved 
him every morning. We left the audience in 
good feehng. We said nothing against Wana- 
maker, nor did we reply to his charges against 
Quay and his railroad support, except to say 
that it seemed that he did not have as much 



GOVERNOR OF PENNSYLVANIA 283 

influence with the Lehigh Valley as Wanamaker. 
We followed Wanamaker in the different towns 
of the state where he spoke and things seemed 
coming my way when I got word that there 
was serious trouble in Allegheny County. I 
had always had the delegates in my congressional 
district and the McKeesport district. I was 
not expecting or trying to elect any delegates 
in the other districts of the county. Magee 
was setting up delegates against me in my 
district. I saw at once that I could not be 
nominated if I had no delegates from my county. 
I went to Pittsburgh and found that the report 
was correct. I got a few of my friends together 
and we went to see William Flinn and J. O. 
Brown. We protested that it was not fair, that 
I did not have the money to make the fight 
that they did, and with a liberal use of it some 
of my delegates might be defeated. Flinn said 
he left the matter of state delegates to Magee. 
I told him that if they insisted on this course 
I would have to abandon my speaking tour with 
Wanamaker and come back home and give my 
whole time to secure the election of delegates. 
Flinn said, "That was probably what Wana- 
maker and Magee wanted." Sam Grier, Frank 



284 THE TALE OF A PLAIN MAN 

Torrance, John Murphy, Walter Lyon and 
William H. Graham, friends of mine and all 
friends of Flinn's, were very warm in their pro- 
est and finally Flinn said, "It did not seem 
fair; that he would see Magee." There was a 
meeting between my friends and Flinn and 
Brown the next day. I was conceded the dele- 
gates in my congressional district. Of the three 
in McKeesport district I got one and Magee 
the other. Sam Grier threw up a cent, Torrance 
called heads for me and Brown tails for Magee, 
and tails won. I joined McDowell at the 
meeting the next night. A majority of the 
delegates elected in the state were for me. 
That did not mean my nomination, as Quay 
could have nominated either of us or an entirely 
dark horse. I have ever been an optimist and 
I expected to be nominated. There was no 
conference, consultation or talk between Quay 
and me after the election of delegates or between 
our representatives. I did not see him. Numer- 
ous attempts were made to get Quay to nominate 
some one else. One delegation said to him, 
"Our man will do just as you tell him, the 
same as Stone would." "Yes," said Quay, 
"but I would have to tell him and I would not 



GOVERNOR OF PENNSYLVANIA 285 

have to tell Stone. He would know what to 
do without telling." As the convention ap- 
proached. Quay told Boies Penrose that he 
would not attend the convention if Bill Andrews 
did. Andrews had been very active for me and 
it was said by hostile papers that he was to be 
my secretary of state and would control my 
administration. Penrose and I had an inter- 
view with Andrews to persuade him not to 
attend the convention. Penrose stated to him 
what Quay said. Andrews was indignant. 
Penrose said, "If you attend the convention 
Stone's nomination will be credited to you and 
it will be hard to elect him. You must sacrifice 
your greatness for the good of the party.'* 
Andrews was not popular. Penrose used very 
persuasive arguments and finally Andrews con- 
sented to stay away. The convention assem- 
bled; Quay was present. His attitude through- 
out was of one who desired the nomination of 
the strongest man to lead the ticket. Various 
compromise candidates sprung up. Quay con- 
ferred with them and their representatives. I 
did not see him at the convention. He was 
apparently considering for the good of the 
party. He knew that the convention would 



286 THE TALE OF A PLAIN MAN 

nominate me if he did not interfere. My cam- 
paign in the state against Wanamaker had made 
me many friends. The convention organized. 
I had selected Tom Marshall of Pittsburgh to 
nominate me, but ill health prevented his 
attendance and he sent his son, Tom Marshall, 
Jr., who presented my name to the convention 
in a masterly speech. I was nominated amid 
great applause and became the party candidate 
for governor. The Prohibitionists nominated 
Dr. Swallow of Harrisburg, and the Democrats 
nominated George A. Jenks of Jefferson County. 
The campaign was very sharp and exciting. 
Swallow and Jenks were both able men and 
good stumpers. All through September and 
October meetings were held. The fear was that 
Swallow would get enough Republican votes to 
elect Jenks. I had with me a good troupe of 
spellbinders, Alex. McDowell, W. I. Schaffer of 
Chester, John P. Elkin, the chairman of the 
Republican State Committee; Tom Stewart, 
the adjutant general; Boies Penrose and other 
good speakers. We went from county to 
county and held meetings in the principal 
towns. Every few days startling head-lines 
would appear in the newspapers that called for 



GOVERNOR OF PENNSYLVANIA 287 

special attention. There was a strong organiza- 
tion in the state known as the A. P. A.'s. Their 
principal purpose was hostility to the Catholic 
Church. A lodge in Allegheny County, with 
the intention of helping me, elected me a mem- 
ber and gave public notice that I would be 
initiated on a certain night, notifying neighbor- 
ing lodges to attend. I had not been consulted. 
They were very strong throughout the state and 
supposed as a matter of course that I would 
join. I was up against it. If I declined there 
was danger of losing the A. P. A. vote and if 
I joined I would lose the Catholic vote. I did 
not consult any one. I knew what to do. I 
wrote to the lodge saying that to join any organ- 
ization while I was a candidate would mean 
only that I was doing it to get votes, that I 
would not join any secret society for that 
purpose. My letter was published in all the 
papers. Secret society support has never been 
as potent as opposition to it. This was demon- 
strated when Joseph Ritner was elected Governor 
of Pennsylvania as an antimasonic candidate. 

The previous legislature had passed a bill 
appropriating $500,000 for the construction of a 
capitol building. Some walls had been built. 



288 THE TALE OF A PLAIN MAN 

There was scandal about it. Swallow wrote me 
a public letter asking me to discuss it in public 
with him and repeated the scandal. I wrote a 
letter to the district attorney at Harrisburg, 
enclosing Swallow's letter and asking him to sub- 
poena Swallow before the next grand jury to 
testify to what he knew about the capitol 
scandal, to the end that the guilty men might 
be indicted and punished; that I knew nothing 
about it, but that evidently Swallow did; and 
that he no doubt would perform his duty as a 
good citizen and help bring the guilty parties to 
punishment. This letter with Swallow's was 
given publicity through the newspapers, but 
I heard no more about it. It kept me busy to 
pilot through all the charges and plans of smart 
scheming men, without putting my foot in it. 
There was an organization in the state, nick- 
named the Hairless Goats. I knew nothing 
about it. Their creed charged that Lincoln 
was assassinated by a plot of the Catholic 
Church, that Mrs. Surra tt and J. Wilkes Booth 
were Catholics and that they were mere instru- 
ments of the church in Lincoln's assassination. 
I was in Blair County, where I met a friend 
who advised me to join them. He told me that 



GOVERNOR OF PENNSYLVANIA 289 

Swallow was a high priest in the order, that a 
certain Rev. Challon was the chaplain. I had 
met Challon. He was a joiner and chaplain 
of a Masonic lodge in Harrisburg, also of the 
A. P. A. lodge and the Junior Order of the 
United American Mechanics. This was too 
deep for me. I told Quay about it and John P. 
Elkin. A letter was written to Chaplain 
Challon by a friend in Blair County who was a 
Hairless Goat, asking for information as to the 
candidates for governor, and if either was a 
Hairless Goat, that the members in Blair 
County were strong and they wanted to vote 
for a "Goat." Challon rephed that the fight 
was between Swallow and me; that I was not 
a member of the order; that Swallow was and 
if they wanted to drive the CathoHcs out of the 
state to vote for Swallow. These letters were 
lithographed and copies sent to every Catholic 
priest in the state. They bore fruit. I was 
going from Harrisburg to Sunbury on the train 
when an Irish CathoUc priest whispered to me, 
"We will beat the heretic." They did. The 
CathoKc vote was very strong for me. I was 
elected by a large majority. 

From the time of my election to inauguration 



290 THE TALE OF A PLAIN MAN 

I did not see Quay or get any message from him. 
He attended the inauguration and after the oath 
was administered to me by my friend Justice 
WilKams of the Supreme Court there was a 
conference at the executive mansion. I had 
promised no appointments. Quay did not ask 
me to appoint any one in my cabinet. He was 
always embarrassed by patronage and often said 
to me that he wished all of the offices were under 
the civil service law. There were so many of his 
friends to whom he was under obligations that 
it was always a serious problem with him which 
one to recommend. He asked me whom I 
thought of appointing. I told him W. W. Griest 
of Lancaster for secretary of the commonwealth, 
John P. Elkin for attorney general and Israel 
W. Durham for insurance commissioner. He 
asked me if I had promised any of them. I 
told him I had not. After some reflection, he 
said that he thought that I could not do better 
than to appoint them. I did so and they were 
confirmed by the senate. I was very fortunate 
in my selections. They were all able, loyal 
men, true to me and their state. I had selected 
Edgar C. Gerwig of Allegheny as my private 
secretary, which was fortunate, for he was very 



GOVERNOR OF PENNSYLVANIA 291 

capable and loyal. He had been my private 
secretary for several years in Washington. My 
list was completed with T. L. Eyre as superin- 
tendent of public grounds and buildings, and 
later with General Frank Reeder as commissioner 
of banking. To all of these men I owe much 
for their loyal support and eflficiency in oflSce. 
They were splendid men. I will not go over 
in detail the four years of my administration. 

I had much to contend with : a deadlock in the 
first legislature over the election of a United 
States senator and serious strikes in the anthra- 
cite coal fields; a deficit in the treasury and 
many complicating political questions. I got 
very little assistance out of Quay, for he was not 
a dictator. He never asked me to make but 
one appointment and that was Lewis E. Beitler 
to be deputy secretary of the commonwealth. 
I appointed him. The first vacancy in the 
Supreme Court came shortly before the state 
convention met. He advised me to wait until 
after the convention, that it would likely take 
the responsibility off my hands. I did so. The 
convention nominated Hon. J. Hay Brown of 
Lancaster, the present chief justice of the 
Supreme Court, a most eminent lawyer and 



292 THE TALE OF A PLAIN MAN 

great jurist. There were two vacancies in the 
Supreme Court. S. Leshe Mestrezat of Union- 
town was nominated by the Democratic State 
Convention, and as electors could each only 
vote for one, he was elected. This was very 
fortunate. He has become a great judge, 
respected by every one. 

I appointed Quay to succeed himself in the 
United States Senate after he was acquitted in 
the criminal court of Philadelphia on the 
charge of violating the election laws of the state, 
and the legislature had refused to elect his 
successor. While his appointment was not ac- 
cepted by the United States Senate, at the fol- 
lowing election where his candidacy was the 
issue, a majority of the senators and members 
of the legislature were elected in his favor 
and he was re-elected United States Senator. 
Previous to the November election another 
vacancy occurred in the Supreme Court. Some 
twenty men in the state expected Quay's support 
for this appointment. He was a candidate 
for the United States Senate. Had any one of 
them been appointed he would have made the 
friend appointed helpless to him by his appoint- 
ment and made nineteen enemies out of the 



GOVERNOR OF PENNSYLVANIA 293 

others. I saw a way to help a friend and at 
the same time render Quay an important service. 
I told Quay that I was going to appoint my law 
partner, William P. Potter of Pittsburgh. He 
recommended in succession his twenty friends. 
I refused all of his recommendations and 
appointed Potter. He was the only man in the 
state I could have appointed without making 
trouble for Quay. Nobody charged Potter's 
appointment to Quay and the twenty apphcants 
remained staunch friends of Quay's. I was not 
influenced alone by the desire to serve Quay. 
I knew that Potter was an honest, capable 
lawyer and that he would make a good judge. 
His record on the bench has justified my 
appointment. 

The second legislature gave me much trouble. 
They passed two bills, one called the ripper bill 
to change the city government of Pittsburgh 
and the other to erect a state capitol building 
at Harrisburg. I tried to escape both but 
could not. The ripper bill was unpopular, but 
it was a good bill and the fact that it still remains 
the law, without any material change after 
fifteen years of trial, proves its merits. 

I gained a good many enemies through igno- 



294 THE TALE OF A PLAIN MAN 

ranee and prejudice and newspaper articles, but 
that has long since subsided. I determined to 
have nothing to do with the construction of the 
capitol building or else to have all to do with it, 
for I expected scandal, and that many people 
would not believe that politicians could erect an 
expensive building without graft. I molded 
the bill to suit me under threat of a veto. It 
appropriated four millions of dollars and put 
the construction of the building entirely in my 
hands by making me and four men to be 
appointed by me the commissioners. Quay 
refused to have anything to do with it, and said 
every one connected with it would get in the 
penitentiary. I appointed Edward Bailey of Har- 
risburg, Professor N. C. Schaeffer of Lancaster, 
William H. Graham of Allegheny, and Senator 
Snyder of Chester County, commissioners. We 
appointed Robert K. Young, solicitor; T. L. 
Eyre, superintendent, and E. C. Gerwig, secre- 
tary. I will not speak in detail of the troubles 
which we had over granite and plans. We were 
four years in completing it and built the finest 
capitol building in the country and turned a 
considerable sum of money back to the state 
treasury. There has never been any scandal 



GOVERNOR OF PENNSYLVANIA 295 

or breath of suspicion over the construction of 
this building. I do not speak of the furnishing 
and equipment of the building under the 
administration of my successor. I had nothing 
whatever to do with that. 

Elkin was a candidate for governor in 1902. 
His opponent was Samuel W. Pennypacker. All 
of the opposition to my administration centered 
against Elkin. Quay's influence was against 
him, but Elkin carried a majority of the dele- 
gates, but was beaten by the most corrupt and 
shameless purchase of his delegates in the con- 
vention that the state had ever seen. Elkin 
and his friends supported Pennypacker and he 
was elected. The shameless purchase of Elkin's 
delegates made great trouble in the party, which 
was not entirely healed by Elkin's nomination 
and election to the Supreme Court in 1904. 
Many changes occurred in our primary election 
laws and amendments to the constitution. 

In the fall of 1902 I visited Mexico. I was 
in the largest cities and spent some ten days in 
the City of Mexico. My wife and daughter 
Isabel accompanied me, also General Frank 
Reeder and wife and Mr. and Mrs. T. L. Eyre, 
their son Wallace, Secretary of the Common- 



296 THE TALE OF A PLAIN MAN 

wealth Hon. W. W. Griest and his wife, and 
Frank Rodgers. I was much interested in the 
people of that country. They seemed to me 
very irresponsible citizens, rather given to dis- 
order than order, and that safety of life and 
property was indifferent to them. A turbulent 
people, quick to take offense and easily excited, 
jealous, suspicious and quarrelsome. A mixture 
of Spanish blood with the native has not pro- 
duced good law-abiding citizens. Their patriot- 
ism and their ambitions are purely personal. 
The welfare and prosperity of the country is 
secondary to the weffare and advancement of 
ambitious citizens. President Diaz seemed to be 
the only person who was able to keep the coun- 
try tranquil and the people law-abiding. If, as 
President, he sometimes did unlawful things, 
they were done to keep peace and public order. 
If he dealt summarily with turbulent spirits 
whose ambitions were leading them to riot and 
revolution, it was because he believed it to be 
the only way to meet the situation, not so much 
to sustain his own prestige as to preserve the 
public peace, credit and prosperity of the 
country. Prior history and subsequent events 
prove that he was right. He has been the only 



GOVERNOR OF PENNSYLVANIA 297 

man that has really ever governed Mexico since 
Cortez. He gave our party an audience through 
the instrumentality of our ambassador. General 
Powell. We rode to the capitol in carriages, 
accompanied by General Powell, one sunny 
afternoon. We were conducted through spacious 
rooms and corridors much more richly furnished 
than any rooms in the capitol and White 
House at Washington. Officers in splendid 
uniforms saluted us and guards and soldiers in 
bright uniforms stood at attention. Costly 
mirrors and furniture and the best works of the 
masters in painting and marble, with expensive 
carpets and curtains, were tastefully arranged in 
the rooms. After being conducted through a 
number of the large rooms, we were seated in 
a smaller room more richly and beautifully 
furnished than any of the others. Officers in 
gaudy uniforms stood around. After waiting a 
few minutes a quiet, medium-sized man came 
into the room unannounced. We were presented 
to President Diaz. He stood and received us 
quietly and simply. Our conversation was 
through an interpreter. I said that I felt greatly 
honored to meet him. I wanted to pay him a 
compliment, so I told him that he looked like 



298 THE TALE OF A PLAIN MAN 

Senator Quay of Pennsylvania. He smiled at 
that. He did look and act like Quay. He had 
heard and read much of Quay. He was inter- 
ested and asked me a number of questions about 
him, all of which I could readily answer. There 
was no importance or official bearing in him. 
He was dressed plainly in a suit of light gray 
clothing, which could have been bought at 
Wanamaker's for eighteen dollars. His shoes 
had probably been blacked the day before. His 
collar and shirt front were clean, but his blue 
string necktie had not been recently pressed. 
He then shook hands with all of us in a quiet 
informal way and we were conducted out. He 
has always interested me. He could not have 
governed the United States as he governed 
Mexico, neither could any of our Presidents 
have governed Mexico as they have governed 
the United States. I am of the opinion that 
Mexico w411 never be governed except by 
another Diaz. I found two young men there, 
sons of General Dent of Potter County, Penn- 
sylvania. They had been engaged in business 
there several years, and were close observers, 
intelligent and successful in business. I knew 
their father. They were very kind to us and 



GOVERNOR OF PENNSYLVANIA 299 

from them I learned much of Diaz's ways of 
governing. The Americans in Mexico all had 
great confidence in Diaz. They all voted for 
him at every election. Some few years before 
my visit there was a failure of the corn crop in 
Mexico. The price of corn rose rapidly. It 
had nearly all been cornered by speculators and 
hard times were pressing the poor peons, whose 
principal food is corn, ground by hand between 
two stones, mixed with water and baked into 
cakes over a little wood fire in a corner of their 
miserable one-room adobe huts. There was a 
high tariff on corn from the states. So far as 
I could learn the constitution of Mexico is 
similar in most respects to our own and their 
laws gave no power to the President to suspend, 
lower or increase the tariffs fixed by congress. 
What was to be done.'' The President could 
convene congress, but before any law could be 
passed the suffering of the people would be 
great. Besides, it was doubtful whether con- 
gress would pass a remedial law against the 
influence of the corn speculators. There was 
plenty of cheap corn in the states clamoring to 
get into Mexico, but prevented by the high 
tariff. This is what Diaz did. He issued a 



300 THE TALE OF A PLAIN MAN 

proclamation that if the price of corn after ten 
days was above the usual normal price he would 
suspend the tariff on corn from the states until 
the next crop was harvested. This at once 
brought the price of corn down to the normal, 
and the sufferings of the poor people were over. 
Diaz had no legal right to do this, but outside 
of the criticisms of the corn speculators every 
one approved his action. 

Six miles out of Mexico is the Roman Catholic 
Cathedral of Guadalupe. There, on the twelfth 
day of December in each year, come the faithful 
from far and near to be cured of their ills through 
the influence of a sacred relic which holds its 
sway through a legend which is everywhere 
beheved to be true. The legend is that after 
the conquest of Mexico and the introduction of 
the Roman Catholic rehgion, a converted native 
was passing along a path where the cathedral 
now stands, when the Virgin Mary appeared to 
him and told him to go and tell the bishop to 
build a cathedral where she stood. The native 
told the bishop, who paid no attention to the 
message, thinking that if the Virgin Mary 
wanted a cathedral built she would speak to 
him about it. He told the native that he must 



GOVERNOR OF PENNSYLVANIA 301 

bring a token. A few days afterwards the 
native was again passing the same spot when 
he saw the Virgin Mary. She asked him 
the result of her message to the bishop. The 
native said that the bishop would not pay 
any attention to him unless he brought a token. 
She pointed to a barren rock a few feet away, 
when instantly there appeared beautiful roses 
in bloom. It was winter and there were no roses 
in the country. She told him to take them in 
his apron to the bishop and repeat her message. 
The native did so, and as he let down his leather 
apron and the roses fell on the floor, there was 
seen the face of the Virgin Mary on the apron 
as if it had been painted there. The cathedral 
was built and each year this apron is exposed to 
the view of worthy, faithful behevers, and it is 
said, makes many marvelous cures. A few years 
ago a reformer priest began to preach that the 
legend was not sufficiently authenticated, that 
he did not beheve that the face on the apron 
was the face of the Virgin Mary. He created 
great excitement, and there were outbreaks and 
riots. Diaz sent for the priest and told him that 
his preaching was creating great disturbance and 
if he kept it up riots would follow and it might 



302 THE TALE OF A PLAIN MAN 

result in revolution. The priest said he was very 
sorry, but that he could not accept the legend 
when his investigation led him to beheve that 
it was not true. Diaz said, "So you do not 
believe that the Virgin Mary appeared to the 
Indian?" "No," said the priest. "But," 
said Diaz, "you do beheve that men occasionally 
suddenly disappear in Mexico?" "Yes," said 
the priest. "Well," said Diaz, "my advice 
to you is to say no more against the legend of 
Guadalupe." The priest took the advice and 
preached no more against the legend and the 
tumult subsided. 



CHAPTER XL 

Return to Practice 

I WENT back to Pittsburgh in 1903 and 
resumed the law practice with my son 
Stephen under the firm name of Stone and 
Stone. I had been away twelve years, eight 
years in congress and four years at Harrisburg. 
While Potter was in the office the clients were 
held pretty well and they had increased. 
Stephen had done well, but there had been a 
loss of some clients. I gave my whole time and 
attention to the law practice and soon was 
employed in some important cases. I fought 
in the courts as attorney for Allegheny City to 
prevent its consolidation with Pittsburgh. The 
first act of the legislature providing for consoli- 
dation was declared unconstitutional by the Su- 
preme Court of the state, but the governor called 
a special session of the legislature. D. T. Watson, 
one of the ablest lawyers of his time, prepared a 
new bill for consohdation. It was passed and 
sustained by the Supreme Court of the state 
and the Supreme Court of the United States. 

(303) 



304 THE TALE OF A PLAIN MAN 

My fortune was gone through the endorse- 
ments of notes for political friends and losing 
investments, but I worked hard and won some 
important cases. I had had too much political 
experience to inspire my clients with any too 
great respect for my knowledge of the law, but 
I had tact and management and was a good 
actor before a jury. I had learned human nature 
and men in the greatest men's school in the 
world, the House of Representatives at Wash- 
ington. We gradually obtained quite a large 
and lucrative law practice. My son Stephen 
was more than an assistant. He became a 
very good lawyer and advocate and with 
A. Wilson McCandless, our junior partner, we 
worked advantageously. I will not speak of 
the many important cases that we tried. There 
was one, however, which I will tell about, as it 
shows how tact and management play impor- 
tant parts in a lawsuit before a jury. The 
Babcock Lumber Company, our clients, had 
purchased all of the timber on a fourteen-hun- 
dred-acre tract of land in Somerset County. 
Their contract provided that they should not 
cut any standing timber less than six inches in 
diameter two feet from the ground. The 



RETURN TO PRACTICE 305 

owners of the land claimed that the company 
had cut many trees less than six inches in 
diameter two feet from the groimd. They 
sent a lot of men to measure the stumps of 
these trees, dashing a brush of red paint on each 
stump. They claimed for several thousand 
young trees which, under the statute of the state 
allowing three times the value, totaled a claim 
of about forty thousand dollars. I was taken 
into the case about a month before it was tried. 
I have always believed that it is quite improb- 
able that the average man will at all times do 
thorough and accurate work. The stumps 
were there, each with a swish of red paint upon 
the top of it. I sent a gang of men to measure 
each stump and dig up and bring to the court 
house each and every stump with paint on it 
measuring more than six inches in diameter. 
In all the stumps they found eleven with paint 
on them that measured more than six inches 
across the top. I put each one in a paper flour 
sack and tied the top. The case was tried before 
Judge Kooser in Somerset County, a very able 
judge. When a witness for the plaintiff would 
testify to the measurement of the stumps, I 
would untie one of my stumps and, pointing to 

20 



306 THE TALE OF A PLAIN MAN 

the paint, he would identify it as one of the 
stumps measured for the plaintiff. I would 
then ask, *'Did you actually measure all of the 
stumps with a rule?" He would reply, "We 
measured the most of them, but we estimated 
some that were clearly less than six inches." 
"Is this stump less than six inches.'^" "Yes," 
answered he. I said, "Measure it. Here is a 
rule." It measured six and a quarter inches 
and so I would destroy the testimony of each 
of the plaintiff's witnesses, and the eleven 
stumps, like Joseph's lean kine in his dream, ate 
up and destroyed the thousands of the plaintiff's 
stumps. The verdict was necessarily for the 
defendant. Here was a case of over-prepared- 
ness by the plaintiff. If he had not painted 
his stumps he would have obtained a verdict. 

John Stewart of Chambersburg had been 
elected a judge of the Supreme Court, while 
Robert von Moschzisker and Robert S. Frazer 
from Philadelphia and Pittsburgh had become 
members of the court. They were all very able 
and capable judges, having had much experience 
in the common pleas courts of their counties. 
In October, 1915, this court and the state met 
with a great loss in the death of John P. Elkin. 



RETURN TO PRACTICE 307 

The governor appointed Emory A. Walling of 
Erie, a common pleas judge of state-wide repu- 
tation, as Elkin's successor. At a presentation 
of Judge Elkin's portrait to the court by Mrs. 
Elkin I made a brief address at her request 
and insert it here as my estimate of the man 
and his character. 



CHAPTER XLI 

Remarks of William A. Stone at the Pre- 
sentation OF THE Portrait of Justice 
John P. Elkin, Deceased, to the 
Supreme Court, March 20, 
1916. 

I FIRST knew John P. Elkin in about 
1895. He was then deputy attorney 
general. The attorney general was H. C. 
McCormick, one of the ablest lawyers in the 
northern tier of counties. I saw him at intervals 
during the four years that he was deputy 
attorney general. He impressed me as a man 
of candor and sincerity from my first knowledge 
of him. In 1898 he was chairman of the Repub- 
lican State Committee. My relation to him 
then became personal and intimate and remained 
so until his death. When he became attorney 
general in January, 1899, he brought to the 
oflSce the skill and training he had learned from 
his predecessor and a thorough knowledge of 
the work of the office. There is no period of 
four years in the history of the state when the 

(308) 



JOHN P. ELKIN 309 

demands upon the attorney general were more 
unusual and tested the ability of the lawyer so 
much as they did during his occupancy of the 
oflSce. Four great and far-reaching questions 
concerning the power of the executive were 
settled and adjudicated in the courts and the 
United States Senate by him and his able 
deputy, F. W. Fleitz, during this period. The 
first was the power of the governor to veto a 
joint resolution seeking to amend the constitu- 
tion of the state, resulting in a decision by this 
court that such a resolution need not be pre- 
sented to the governor for his approval — 
reported in Commonwealth vs. Griest, 196 Pa. 
State Reports, page 396. Prior to this decision 
the governors had been signing and vetoing such 
resolutions, frequently thereby preventing the 
people from voting upon the adoption of the 
amendment. While the report of the case does 
not show him to have been connected with it, 
still it was his plan and work to test the question 
and have it finally settled. 

The next question was of great importance, 
in which the power of the governor to approve 
a part of an item in a general appropriation bill 
and veto a part of the same item was sustained 



310 THE TALE OF A PLAIN MAN 

in this court, reported in Commonwealth vs. 
Barnett, 199 Pa. State Reports, page 161. 
Previous to this decision it was generally sup- 
posed that governors must either approve the 
whole item or veto it — many items were reluc- 
tantly approved by governors because they were 
in part meritorious and necessary. This resulted 
in a deficit in the treasury, as the appropriations 
were invariably greater than the revenues. 
Since this decision the governors have been 
able by reducing items to keep the appropriations 
within the anticipated revenue. The next 
question was important to the whole country as 
well as this state. It was the power of the 
governor to appoint a United States Senator 
while the legislature was in session. Judge 
Elkin argued this question before the Judi- 
ciary Committee of the United States Senate. 
His argument was so able that he was person- 
ally complimented by his opponent. Senator 
Edmunds, and by many able lawyers and 
judges. But the most important question of 
all for the first time to be decided in any court 
in this country was the power of the governor 
to declare martial law. In Commonwealth vs. 
Shortall, 206 Pa. State Reports, page 165, you 



JOHN P. ELKIN 811 

will find this case reported. It has been the 
leading case upon this subject and settled the 
question for the first time, holding that the 
governor of a state may declare martial law and 
enforce it. It was a bold stand that Judge 
Elkin and his deputy attorney general took, 
fraught with serious consequences if not sus- 
tained by the courts, but made necessary by the 
condition existing at the time in certain counties 
of this state. Fortunately, the patriotism of 
this court rose above the technical objections of 
skilled attorneys, and by a unanimous opinion 
this court upheld the order of the governor and 
the commanding oflficer of the National Guard in 
practically making the civil authorities sub- 
ordinate to the military authorities when cir- 
cumstances justified extreme measures to pre- 
serve the public peace. 

Judge Elkin was fitted in the school of 
strenuous experience to sit in the highest tribunal 
of the state and when he became a candidate for 
a place upon this bench the people of the state 
showed their appreciation of his merits by 
electing him a justice of this court by a large 
majority. Of his record as a justice of the 
court I will not speak. The published reports 



312 THE TALE OF A PLAIN MAN 

of his decisions are accessible to all. He was 
not new and unacquainted with the law when he 
came here. He was ripe with the study and 
experience of great constitutional and govern- 
mental questions. He early demonstrated by 
his opinions his familiarity with the issues that 
came before him. His opinions rank well with 
his predecessors and colleagues. His logic was 
keen, forcible, direct, compelling assent. He 
grew and grew as a jurist with every year's 
experience until his rank and status as a judge 
was not questioned by any one. He worked 
hard and wrestled hard with the many difficult 
problems that came before him, but he settled 
every one of them in the eye of his judgment 
and conscience and never shirked a single 
great responsibility of his high office and never 
acquiesced in the opinion of others without 
testing and proving the result by knowledge 
obtained by investigation. He was conscien- 
tious. His motto was, *Be fearless, but first 
be right.' He had great courage. Observant 
of public sentiment, he was yet independent of it 
and was never controlled by it. Glad when it 
approved his course, sorry when it did not, but 
at all times uninfluenced by it. He was a 



JOHN P. ELKIN 313 

great judge, a righteous judge. But it is of his 
charming character as a man that I wish to 
speak. He was a loyal friend. He would 
sacrifice much for his friends. His friends were 
many. They all loved him. He held the key 
of sympathy with which he unlocked every 
troubled heart. He believed that suffering alone 
established a claim to sympathy. He never 
withheld it from man, woman or child. Abso- 
lutely clean morally himself, he yet never 
inflicted his morals upon others, and while not 
justifying shortcomings in them, the 'holier than 
thou' thought never entered his mind. He 
was simple in his tastes and habits; very little 
suflSced him. He was not vain or proud or 
egotistical. Many envied him, but none were 
his enemies. He was a great character. He 
was John Ridd in that matchless story, *Lorna 
Doone.' The strength and beauty of his 
character were as wide and open as the sea. His 
friendship was Hke the shadow of a great rock 
in a desert land. He is gone. He sleeps in the 
bosom of the county that he loved. The rich 
and the poor alike had tears for him and his 
untimely death. When Decoration Day comes 
his grave will be covered with flowers. They will 



314 THE TALE OF A PLAIN MAN 

not all come from the florist. There will be 
wild flowers plucked from poor men's gardens, 
the forests and the meadows. There will be 
flowers from the old and the young; little chil- 
dren who loved him, and for whom he always 
had a smile and a kind word, will bring them. 
Their play will cease as they speak in hushed 
voices of the man who had such a wonderfully 
winning smile. Mr. Chief Justice, you can 
paint the lily, you can paint the rose so exact 
and truthful that it can hardly be distinguished 
from the model, but, sir, there is one thing of 
the rose that you cannot paint: you cannot 
paint the fragrance of the rose. I can tell the 
story of John Elkin; I can tell of his rapid rise, 
his exploits, his conquests; I can speak of his 
great ability, his great sympathy for mankind; 
I can tell of his talents, but I cannot paint the 
fragrance of his character and his friendship 
or the great love, respect and veneration which 
his friends have for him." 

On December 10, 1915, the judges of the. 
Supreme Court appointed me its prothonotary. 
I was appointed prothonotary of the Superior 
Court by the judges of that court on March 
4, 1916. The Superior Court was created by 



JOHN P. ELKIN 315 

an act of the legislature in 1895. The tenure of 
office is ten years. Only one of the original 
members, George B. Orlady, rem ains on the bench. 
He was elected for the third time in 1915, and is 
now the president judge of that court. He is a 
very able learned judge. His colleagues, William 
D. Porter, John J. Henderson, John B. Head, John 
W. Kephart, Frank M. Trexler and J. Henry Wil- 
liams, are all able, conscientious judges. This 
court from its organization has held high place in 
the judiciary of our state. It has disposed of 
more than 12,000 cases since its creation. My 
predecessor was James T. Mitchell, ex-chief jus- 
tice of the Supreme Court. The office is a very 
dignified and honorable one and the fees derived 
from it are sufficient to support me and those 
dependent on me. I have passed the age of 
threescore years and ten and I am contented and 
satisfied. I have no apologies to make for what 
I have done or what I have left undone. I 
have made some mistakes which were plainly 
apparent afterwards, but at the time I thought 
my action was for the best. 

I spend my summers at Four Mile Run in 
Tioga County, where I have a comfortable 
cottage. Some of my children and grand- 



316 THE TALE OF A PLAIN MAN 

children are generally with me. Friends fre- 
quently visit me there. I have spent most of 
my time there from June to October for fifteen 
years. Neighboring cottages are occupied by 
Lloyd Smith, Frank Deans, Leonard Harrison, 
Bob Young, Henry Gardner and William Cham- 
paign, all old Tioga County friends. It is a 
wild, beautiful gorge on Pine Creek with the 
mountains ranging from two thousand to twenty- 
three hundred feet above sea level all about, 
with no public road to it but the New York 
Central Railroad. There are speckled trout in 
Four Mile Run and black bass in Pine Creek. 
I take great pleasure in studying their habits 
and catch my share of them. I am an optimist 
and do not waste any time in thinking about my 
mistakes or those of my friends. I am con- 
tented and happy. There are bear, deer, wild- 
cats, porcupines, ground-hogs, pheasants and 
squirrels about. We do not molest each other. 
I love to hear the woodthrush sing in the early 
morning and the wildcat cry at night. The 
black bass is the game fish in our northern 
Pennsylvania waters. I love to watch him 
build his nest and rear his young. He will 
select a smooth surface bottom near the shore 



JOHN P. ELKIN S17 

where the water is still, with a normal depth of 
three or four inches ; then he brings in his mouth 
smooth, round stones and lays them like a mosaic 
floor side by side, covering a circular place 
about eighteen inches in diameter. Then he 
brings larger stones and lays them in a wall 
around his floor. He then brings other small 
stones and lays three or four layers of floor, 
one above the other until they reach the surface 
of the water. His house is then finished and 
he fares forth in search of a mate. He courts 
her, bites her in the neck if she is unwilling and 
chases and drives her into the nest. If she 
spawns within a reasonable time she stays. 
If she does not he drives her off and seeks 
another. He sheds his milt over the spawn 
and drives her off. He will not allow her any 
part in raising the family. As soon as the little 
ones are hatched he brings small soft worms and 
bugs from the under side of plants and weeds 
growing at the edge of the water and feeds 
them, and changes to larger and harder food as 
they grow. When large enough to navigate, 
he takes them out of the nest and teaches them 
how to obtain their food. He is ever on guard 
near the nest and woe to the fish that comes 



318 THE TALE OF A PLAIN MAN 

near it. He will dart at a fish twice his size. When 
the little ones are able to fare for themselves 
he leaves them. He is the fiercest, hardest 
fighter among our fish. He is not a cannibal. 
I have found most every kind of water life inside 
black bass that he could swallow, but I have 
never found another bass in him. Minnows, 
suckers and small eels I frequently find in 
cleaning him. A fifteen-inch bass when hooked 
makes a lusty fight. He fights with wisdom and 
strategy. He will run a hundred feet away 
from you. Then your line is slack and you 
think he is loose, when he is likely to demon- 
strate within a rod of you. He will leap into 
the air two feet. Let him have the line, only 
pull when he is not pulling. You have got to 
drown him. Have him swallow water. This 
he must do when moved through the water 
swiftly at long distances. In his ordinary con- 
dition he does not swallow water, but simply 
gets the oxygen out of it through his gills. 
Don't try to pull him out of the water — when 
he gets fagged and full of water near the shore, 
get him with a landing net or, if you have 
none, lay down your pole and get into the 
water behind him and throw him out upon the 



JOHN P. ELKIN 319 

bank with your hands. One large bass caught 
after a spirited fight will keep up your spirits 
and furnish a topic of talk for forty-eight hours. 
There is not much difference between the 
fight put up by a black bass and a speckled 
trout of the same size, but I think the bass puts 
up the most intelligent fight. I do not fish for 
the table, but for the sport of it. James Scarlet, 
a successful fly fisherman of Danville, Pa., tells 
of meeting a countryman on a trout stream who 
told him that there was a large trout in a 
certain hole who would not take a bait, but 
might take a fly. Scarlet gave him several flies 
and a leader and said to him that he ought to 
have a landing net or he would not be able to 
land him. The man said, "I don't want to 
land him. I want him to get away so I can 
catch him again." This evidences the true 
spirit of the sport of fishing. I have four months 
of fishing out of the twelve each year. With 
four months of fishing and camp life, when your 
thoughts are occupied by the sport and your 
environments, you will not think and worry so 
much about other things during the balance of 
the year. I envy no one. I wish all men and 
women were as contended and happy as I am. 



iiiiuiinii 



LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 




